dnystwn,
... I know how you feel.... - went through that myself...

My preloaders are ok at the moment, the main one remains fine - the other preloaders for the content swfs behave a little iratically, some coming up within the first 20%, the others - een though exactly the same - don't show up until about 60, or even 80%... aaarrrrhggggghhhh.....

But I've also been talking to someone on another forum and there's a better way, I think - haven't had time to set it up on mine yet - but have a look yourself:
http://www.sitepointforums.com/showt...871#post915871

Quick sum-up: set up the preloader movieclip on the main timeline - to be called while swfs are loaded. But instead of scripting everything form the main timeline (as I tried previously, couldn;t get it to work...) - you still set up the first frame for preloading and call the prelaoder movieclip from this external swf....

Well, take a look at the thread - if I don't make sense here...

I'll let you knwo when I've tried it... keep me posted on your progress..