Ever since I read of the problem with rusting leaper retaining wire, I have made it a point to occasionally tug on the leaper to make sure it is secure. This time I did it before going through a car wash and it came off in my hand. I cant imagine the possible damage had it come off and been dragged across the car by a car wash brush. I even had the presence of mind to retrieve the spring which had dropped behind the radiator grill by removing the plastic panel above it.

The youtube videos didn't yield a sensible approach to repair the leaper but I quickly realized that the best way would be to remove the baseplate to get a nice tight fit on the replacement wire but had to give up on this idea because Jaguar saw fit to use adhesive tape under the baseplate in addition to the nice big plastic nut (I used a 15/16" deep socket to remove it).

I used pliers to remove the crimp fitting on the spring which left me with a nice neat hole to poke the replacement wire through. I used some brake security wire which I last used to secure the drilled bolts on an E-Type. The wire loops through the bottom of the leaper, then through the baseplate. I used the metal inside of one of those plastic screw terminals which has two nice threaded screws to clamp down on the open end of the wire loop after making sure the spring fit snugly into the hole on the underside of the baseplate. This fitting fit nicely through the large plastic securing bolt which then was tightened to secure the whole leaper assembly. Snipping off the excess wire completed the job.

I strongly recommend doing this repair before you lose your leaper. Once I worked out how to do it, the whole job took less than 20 minutes and cost me less than a few cents in parts.

Steve

 

So I DID have the cat let looses in the car wash, fortunately just a small door like ding-I thought it was a grim leaper. I nabbed a new leaper on ebay for almost nothing(made in Italy-fine Italian sculpture) and somewhere saw a thread about using thread or floss under the base to cut trough the black goop(maybe done post production. Now I have to remove the rest of the goop somehow and place the new on replete with an included gasket and srew it home.

Should I use a sealing adhesive like this one had? Methinks it's prudent as nut get loose, especially with age.

 

Glue it down. The new Leaper will outlast the rest of the car.