I am installing XR's on a 96 Formula 382. It originally came with Bravo's.
With the purchase of the drives, I recieved two red dot gimbal bearing kits, P/N 30-862540A 2. I have been told that the red dot bearing is required for the XR drive. The kit also contains trim cylinder spacers, (P/N 15768A3) and says "some installations require spacers to prevent drive damage". How can I tell if I need to add these spacers.
Thanks

if the spacers you are talking about look kind of like a peice of celery, they may have been included in case your drives did not have the oblonged rear hole in the drive for the rear trim cylinder attachment point. Earlier drives had a standard round rear hole for the trim cylinder mount, thus you would not have the peices. Please describe what the spacers you are refering to look like. Thanks.

The spacers go inside the trim cylinders to limit upward travel. The early XR's have u joints that will bind if the drives are raised too far. I don't think the later style has this problem. What are the drive serial numbers?

The drives are being custom built with all new components. I have ordered them with the older style uppers (not swept back) so I can use my existing steering arms. Not sure that they will have serial numbers since they are new.
The spacers in the kit are "U" shaped plastic.

Is there some sort of distance or angle that can be measured ?

We bought the Mercury trim cylinder wrench and the spacers but we never did get around to installing the spacers. Our plan was to limit the travel to the optimum flat water WOT/handling position. This way you could just run the trim all the way out to the stops without looking at the indicators.

If the hole for the rear trim cylinder mounting pin is oblonged, the spacer, (look like peice of celery) goes in front of the trim cylinder mounting pin.

Now I get your description. My current drives have an oblong hole with a spacer. I have not recieved the new drives yet, so I am not sure if they have the round or oblong hole.
The spacers I recieved in the bearing kit actually go inside the trim cylinder to limit travel. What I am getting out of this is that if my new drives have the oblong hole, I should be able to put the aluminum (celery shaped) spacer behind the pin, and not worry about the trim cylinder spacers. Correct ????