Another thing i did notice is that the wire used in photo from the Ceriatone site appears to be a thinner gauge then the wire i used.. Especially the tube socket bridging, Don't really know if that is true but it seems that way in the photo. Does it matter regarding wire gauge?
I can't see how.
And I doubt it's the PT used, you could try and flip the OT to use the tear grommet instead of the one in the middle, but that's a shot in the dark. i would try and aee if you can isolate the location of the problem first and than start changing things.