that's how I spent my last 3 days. picture taken at 30 mph at about 10am yesterday
This boat ("Chris") is my 3rd, the first being a 1988 bayliner 1500 capri and the second being a 1988 Bayliner 1950 Capri with the 305.
You have a perfectly fine boat with absolutely nothing wrong with it.
The history: in the past, boating of any type was a rich mans game. You went to a dealer, got a boat, got a trailer, got an engine, from 3 separate entities and had the dealer outfit with equipment. The cost, being that every purchase was a 'one off', was astronomical (for 1970's)
Enter Brunswick (yes, the maker of billiard tables and bowling alleys) and ceo Jack Recihert, he purchased Bayliner (a fine company with a huge pacific northwest history) and Sea Ray - the first citizen sport boat company outside of chris craft.
Since they also acquired mercury marine and US marine, now, the factories were producing boats, with an in house trailer, and a branded, but corporate drive and in house accessories and due to the in-house ness, as well as purchasing power and the elimination of middle men, the package price was less than HALF that of competitors. Since the dealers were paid to goto trade shows and mall shows in the 80's and they dangled complete boating packages for less than a new car, the population exploded.
If you were a dealer, selling the dealer assembled, hand built Cobalt line (for example) OF COURSE you started spreading misinformation by word of mouth. To any naysayer, when you ask them what failed and for who, it was always the 'girlfriend of cousins ex wife who had a friend located over somewhere'. No, the coast guard had no advisories. No, the NMMA did not speak unfavorably about the brand. No, no boats were banned.
At the same time, bayliner itself had a long standing contract with OMC (maker evinrude, johnson) to use OMC motors for sterndrives and remnants of the old chrysler corporation for outboards and BOY, did that rankle brunswick.
outboard wise, the 'Force' (as they became known once brunswick purchased the assets to end the contract) were sneezy, poor running and old tech. not all that desirable. Stern drive wise, OMC finally abandoned the string drive (long favored in the pacific northwest for its ability to tilt ALL of the sterndrive out of the salt water, metal technology being what it was) with the new OMC cobra series, which was a clean sheet of paper. In 1989, when your engine was made, you had exactly 3 stern drive choices in the US for that boat: Mercruiser Alpha 1, OMC Cobra drive and Yamaha. It would be worth noting that the Yamaha sterndrive was a direct copy of the Cobra, and the Alpha 1 is then, as it is now: junk. (sorry, but the full name of my business if 'GAMMA' aka Graffius auto marine motorcycle atv and being certified to work on both OMC and merc, the merc is by far the weaker sister. Do mercs anecdotally some times last? sure. But if you spec a cobra drive, the conversation about longevity never comes up.
Do parts break or wear in a boat? yes. they are pounding into water with forces that will turn your body to jelly. proper boat ownership is maintenance AND just because it is a boat, don't leave it outside uncovered in the winter.
Your motor is based on a GM forklift/industrial 4 cylinder well suited to marine life, it will rarely if ever see north of 4400 rpm which is just fine for longevity and at 130/140hp (I forget the spec for your year) its a little low on power for a 19ft boat allowed to handle 7 people or x-lbs. The crap people put inside boats is amazingly heavy and crap in the stern hinder your climb out onto plane. Your stern drive biggest weak link is the shift cable, storing the drive on the trailer in full tilt puts strain on where the cable meets the brass end guide and it breaks. One day it will got into reverse, break, go into forward and stay there forever. The part is/was about $110 and an hour of your life to fix. The motors weakest link(s) are corrosion of the points in the distributor. (look up petronix) and boiling of the ESA module. This is a large improvement over mercury for dog leg shifted stern drives. Mercury temporarily shorts the ignition to release gear lash torque and enable you to get in/out of gear. OMC built an electronic gizmo that when activated by these funny looking 'fingers' on the shift cable ends, limits instantaneous rpm to about 340 allowing smooth engagement and removing certain death from any aftermarket electronic spark modules you might have added. BUT! inside the engine compartment, and since these are bolted to the intake and all the heat, they fry. (not at all different from issues we have with amps) My local fix was to divorce the ESA from the engine itself. I did a lot of work in this area as a partner/beta tester with MSD to come up with an interface to allow the ESA to work with the 6M spark module. I think I still have one in stock and I would give it up, but its a v8 module and well...yanno.,
On a personal note, and what got me in the business/hobby was my mall show purchase of a 1988 1500 capri with a 50hp force. I quickly learned what was salesman BS and that with more than 3 reasonable adults, she would not get on plane. so being kidless and just the wife and I, we worked on an upgrade and settled on a 19ft GlassStream with the 4.3v6 2bbl. BUT! that fall the same dealer had another show and made me an offer: trade in my half paid for 1500 for what I paid for it, on a 1988 1950 capri leftover at a great show price. But it had a v8 and I was not sure I needed that power, but what the heck. I got to put it in the water that fall on lake candlewood CT a few weeks and found 'yanno what, this thing roasts thru 50mph with ease'. And, it was a chevy v8 and what had I spend half my youth working on?
The 1950 capri has a shallow V hull with 3 steps and responds WELL to power. within a couple years I had the money and time to pull 304hp at 5000rpm (prop limited - you will learn what that means) and hit 62mph on glass - radar verified. anymore was diminishing returns...so much hull was out of water any upset and she started chine walking - you don't want to learn what that means, but should for safety's sake).
put a doel fin on the back and put a person in the front to combat bow rise, and I was a 1-2-3 finisher every summer in the early 90's in the summer drags on the lake pictured above. others were faster, but they could not out-pull her. She even put a few jet owners in tears. somewhere I have some pics of when we popped 5 adults deep-water starts on skis. Beat that Correct Craft!
Anyways, more history, disaster for the boating world struck in the 90's, OMC was bleeding money, buying some things and selling others. One good thing was the license/sale of the cobra king cobra drive to Volvo, who married various parts of the king with their own volvo AQ series and created the 'SX/Cobra' - hands down the best all around stern drive ever built. simple, strong, easy to work on. And in 2000 the OMC boat group went bankrupt. OMC had been acquiring boat makers to, in order to do what brunswick had done. The last 80's thru the mid 90's were the golden years. more than half the respected names in boat hulls were now owned in a way that affordable packages were everywhere. The boating population took off in a way the world has never seen its equal. So when they went bankrupt and the remains were picked over by Bombardier, GenMar etc, Brunswick now had what every company dreams of: no viable competition. Most of the larger names were picked up by someone, but they had no further access to package deals and rather than keep prices low, Brunswick raised them to 'just below' the competition. As a result, in 17 years boat prices have tripled. The dot bomb of the early 2000's and the sub prime implosion of 2008 have made it once again a rich mans game. To replace my current boat (now 21 years old) today would require, foot per foot, amenity per amenity over $65000 for most 'value' brands, and close to $100000 from Chris craft. No thank you.
So you did good any utterly ignore anyone who tells you otherwise and if they disagree, send them to me. put a fin on back (if not there already) so she planes easier and keep up on the maint and see another 30 years from it. the std 4 inch foam in the front and rear seats can be had in high density 5-6 inch flavors from jo anne fabrics and you can replace the carpet with lowes outdoor grade, just get the frig out of the boat when you spread the cement as the hull holds in the fumes. don't contemplate a v8 conversion as the cobra drive has the wrong gear ratio and prop clearance. a 2bbl v6 is doable. we even worked up a conversion for the EFI 3.1 GM back in the 90's using closed cooling. K&N makes a legal air cleaner for that. the escort trailer has back backing plate mounts already installed so you can add simple surge drum brakes (highly recommended) and if you ever remove the stern drive for maint or replacement of the gimbal bearing, I created a wooden stand that fits and lets you tilt the drive to burp the oil - you can have it if you ever get east. and lastly for now, the drive mounted water pump is changeable in the water, but don't let it get so bad you have to discover that, change it every other year.
