Found out hard way years ago about bad cable collets. Will no longer use any old collet!! Speedmaster long ago proved their quality to me. And, from what I've seen after twenty plus years, continue to do so. I have on hand two of their cable collets. I prefer to use the collet with the nipple on it. That nipple does not engage the flywheel due to like .003" clearance. Was told that nipple is to give that much more engagement on the shaft threads. To me, if I see that the nipple does not go inside of the flywheel, that would indicate the cable collet is bad. (Never had that happen) I have had a collet without that nipple that was VERY off center! What brand? Don't know... Not always easy to detect... Hopefully not a flywheel misalignment? I'm sure somebody will say they've had it the other way around. Not having that nipple engagement with the flywheel would indicate something is wrong (to me anyway).
I do now own some of Al's cable collets. After looking inside of them and inspecting them overall, I'm quite happy to give them a try! The design, along with the obvious quality gives me great hope and confidence that they'll do the expected job!!
Setting up a new boat, thought checking lengths of different brands of cable collets would be smart. That was the thought that first got me started checking out the different collets. Remembering loosing TWO props and cables back then, at a race was/is enough to make me want to do much closer investigation!
Still looking for that Speedmaster cable collet with that nipple on it. Have a strong belief in having backup parts for everything.
Anyone have a phone number for Technical hobbies? Needs some questions answered...
Also, any tricks, ideas, first thing to do with a new cable collet thoughts, I'm sure would be welcome by me and others...
Thanks, Guys.
Ken