First of all Happy Father's Day to all you Father's out there.

Ever since I've had Back Problems my son has always helped me on father's day weekend, detail my car. We also do it on Labor day. Today I was putting Griot's cleaner/sealant on the hood of my X. My son was wiping it off. I use a buffing machine, by hand is for young folks. As my son was wiping down he broke of the Jaguar Leaper. I was a bit pissed. He took a look at how it is put together, very cheaply by the way. He went to the local hardware store and both a stronger piece of wire and a aluminum crimps. He threaded the wire thru the hole in the Jaguar and down into the hood/bonnet. put the spring back and then the crimp. I held the Jaguar on the hood/bonnet in place and he push the crimp up as high as he could to compress the spring. He crimped the crimp and that was it as good as new. It is now solid but still flexible as it should be. But the original design is the same as what my son did, but the wire is thin and just rusted away. He also bought stainless steel wire which was a little thicker. So don't despair, as I first did today, they can be fixed and not that hard to do.

 

Nice one Adam.....great story and thanks for sharing.

Sounds like a great ritual you have there on Fathers day and a loving / caring son.

 

Happy Fathers day , sorry a belated one lol
I am glad, you have a handy son and repaired it quickly and safely .
Happy safe driving

 

Here is a pic of the job my son did on the leaper. I looked at my Mercedes emblem and it is bendable also, but of much better construction. The Leaper fix my son did looks better and is stronger then the factory. Also I am going to throw in a picture of the car after we finished detailing the outside. For Father's day my children, Adam Jr and Jill got me a blower vac, so I can vac the car and blow water out of tight spaces. really neat. Griots had the vac for $84.00 and Amazon had the same vac, by the same maker and model for $20.00 less.

If you look at the hood fix pic this is exactly the same way the factory attaches the leaper. As I said my son got some better stainless wire and a aluminum crimp. The important part is the round object and the spring which you cannot see above it. They have to be tight up against the hood before you crimp. And the pic of the car explains itself.

 

Looking good on the detail Adam......same colour and spec as my old X type by the looks of it too

 

I just went through this repair on my S-type last week- the wire rope had rotted out just like yours.

 

After my wife of 32 years left me in 06 for no other reason than "I don't love you anymore, and I am sick and tired with dealing with your back problems." My son decided to stay with my. My daughter moved in with her mother, but comes to see me twice a week without fail. Adam, Jr has been and is a great help to me, he cooks, cleans, laundry and when I get sick stays home at night with me. He is 29 years old and doesn't have to do this. When I was going thru this cancer scare, by the way the doctors determined I don't have cancer in my stomach, but I do a a serious condition call non diabetic, post infectious gastroparesis, which is fairly rare and there is no cure. It does go away in some people, in others it last a lifetime. If it goes away, it usually takes up to a year plus. I've been sick with this for 8 months. The worse part is the constant 24/7 nausea, which no medication for this that I have been given does anything for it. Marinol would probably work, but because of what it is Doctor's do not like to script it to a non cancer patient. My son has taken me to Dr appointments, cat scan appointments, MRI, endoscope appointments. He is a terrific young man and I don't know what I would do without him. Yes I do, I would have to live in a semi care facility.

Back to father's day. My children also got me a 500 watt mini vac/blower, which has a strong vac on one side and a strong blower on the other. Griot's sells it for $84.95. My son found the exact same vac, maker, model, all the accessories for $20.00 cheaper on Amazon. He picked standard shipping last Thursday which is a week, but I got it today. So I am going out tonight and vac and blow the car. I feel the blower will be good for the places where water lingers, it has some very thin tubes for tight spots.

 

I appreciate your son's help and he must be a good guy . I trust he never leaves you when he decides to marry and be a happy family .

I send my best wishes to him thru this message

Back to the leapin' , your pics suggested to me that this was a marvellous job then I imagined

 

Thank you I will pass this on to my son.

 

RegentV12 I showed your post to my son and he says thank you very much. It came at a good time, as he has been down since Monday over a few issues at his job, he is a Web Developer and they are having program problems and he is having a heck of a time fixing. It needs some special software, his boss doesn't want him to spend money on, so he has to create it himself. A lot of hours work for little money. Also I have been very sick with my stomach haven't eaten since Sunday, guess I have to call the doctor again.

He also said " I will make a CD of the Leaper fix for $4.95." He was only kidding. Thanks again.

 

Thank you Adam Loeb

I also wish him good deals with his job and have many luctarive business



Selling a leaper fix CD doesn't sound a bad idea at all lol

 

I'll talk to him about filming and burning a couple of DVD, I forget CD are audio only.

I also will pass on your kind comments to him.
Thank You

 

so... the other day my battery died. the service man comes out to jump start me and lifts the hood by my leaper.... :headsmack:

of course he rips it off (athough it was obviously rusted through anyway) and now I am left to find a way to reattach it.

It looks simple enough... thread the new wire through the leaper, through the base on the hood, down inside the spring, and crimp the wire as it is pushed up against the spring.

So I went to the jag service guys (not the dealer) and he tells me I have to unscrew the base from the underside of the hood, pry the base off the hood. Thread the leaper and base, and spring. Screw the threaded leaper to the base. Double stick tape the base back down, screw it back on. Then crimp the wire against the spring....

WHAT????

Why can I not just do like Adam did, above?

 

Stimpy, you can do exactly as Adam did above. The big trick (this is where a second person may come in handy) is getting a little bit of tension on the spring so once you remove the tension, the cable goes tight and keeps the leaper in place. If you don't get things nice and snug, the leaper way wobble on you some. Follow the above guidance and all is good.

 

thank you

 

I'll go the $4.95 for a dvd of the fix Don Epstein

 

It is a easy job to do, but you do need an extra pair of hands to keep tension of the spring so the leaper stays in place. Also, you need to buy stainless steel wire and crimps. Take the leaper to the hardware store so you can get the thickest wire that will fit through the leapers hole. You don't need to take the base off to do this job, it took my son and I about 1/2 hour to do this jobs and it is holding up very well, very well indeed. You don't really need a DVD just take a look at the pictures I posted and you will get the idea, it just threading the wire thru, adding the two pieces one round piece and the spring and then having someone push up on the spring for tension, twist the wire a few times place the crimp on and crimp it all the while maintaining the pressure on the spring, very important part of the process. Have any questions email me.

 

Adam,
Thanks for the info and pics. Wish they were clear, but I got the idea. Hope you are in better health. I was going to call Jaguar, but the forums helped, push I am always scared of the dealer since they wanted to charge $400 for a battery replacement. I got the battery at Walmart for $89 installed! Thanks for all your help. You saved me a real headache. I was like your son with my dad when he had lung cancer. he passed away in about 6 months, but we had a lot of time to talk driving to the doctor and waiting around. I miss him very much. He was a good dad and one thing I was able to say to him was "I love you" and that I really appreciated all the wisdom he gave me.

 

The dealer probably wouldn't fix it, they would just replace it for big money. I had to replace my front and rear swaybar bushings. The dealer wanted $900 plus. My mechanic did the entire job including bushings for $200.00 quite a difference in price.

I glad my fix worked for you.

 

I had my mechanic fix my leaper just today. He used thick stainless steel wire and crimped it. Worked!