On Saturday I took possession of a 2004 XJR. One of the minor problems was that the leaper was loose. As I drove along it would turn by almost 90 degrees. I could buy a new one, but I thought I should try to see if I could tighten it up some how.

The leaper is held on by a wire running through a loop in it's underside. This passes through the base, the hood, and a spring before being held down by a torx screw. This screw and another one one the other side hold the mounting plate to the hood.

Remove the screw and it's washer and pull the wires tight. Place the wires between the washer and screw head and reinstall the screw. It's important to keep the wires tight and to put the wires on the side of the screw that will pull them tight as the screw is tightened. They should go around the back of the screw if using the left hand screw (when viewed from the front). I then tucked the rest of the wire back in the hole it came out of. It's now nice and tight and took about 5 minutes, including figuring out how it worked.

Should look like this:

 

This is what it is supposed to look like I think with nice fat securing plug underneath. Note the securing pin behind the plug that would prevent any rotation even when slightly loose.

 

That is there, inside the hole in my picture. But I think it just holds the base onto the hood? The leaper itself is separate. The base is tight, but the leaper wasn't. Or maybe something has been messed with?

 

Under the plastic plug there is a spring loaded "clamp".

So the plug holds the base of the leaper and the spring loaded clamp holds the leaper on the base but allows the leaper to "bend" with impact.

So yes I think yours has been messed with.

I took my leaper off because of the possibility of someone trying to forcefully take the leaper causing quite a bit of damage to the hood.

I replaced it with a badge.

 

[QUOTE=jackra_1;1512229]Under the plastic plug there is a spring loaded "clamp".

So the plug holds the base of the leaper and the spring loaded clamp holds the leaper on the base but allows the leaper to "bend" with impact.

So yes I think yours has been messed with.

Yes it has been jury rigged, the wire runs thru the bottom of the leaper and thru the base and spring and is held in place by the washer at the bottom and crimped. The wire lenght is set to compress the spring some holding the leaper tight to its base but allowing it to turn or bend on impact.
The wire has a tendency to corrode at the crimp and break. I used a plastic wire tie in place of the wire running it up thru the washer first and thru the spring and leaper bottom and back down thru the washer allowing me to sinch up on the wire tie and compress the spring to the right tension.The wire tie's holding point keeps it from pulling back thru the washer.
I did this as only a temporary fix but that was three years ago and my new leaper is still resting nicely in my tool box. Don't fix what is not broken.