Utterly destroyed the original engine in my first 2CV in the late-90s by neglecting to refit the oil filler cap and not heeding the warnings from under the bonnet until it was too late. Ended up with the crank in two halves. Needless to say, but I'm much more careful since that little oversight.

Oh no! As bad as that! The first time for me I was getting all cross about who was driving such a polluting vehicle. It was a while before I put two and two together. I was the only car going up the road. Then all of a sudden the smoke billowed up from the dash, emergency bus stop dive and oh my god, what a smoking steaming mess!

This time I recognised the smell quite quickly!

When I got where I was going they told me I had engine oil running down my forehead. It had dripped off the end of the bonnet onto my head as I'd done a quick wipe. Haha.

Sorry to hear of your engine trauma. How awful!

I need to apologise for the utter twaddle I posted last night

I have run the engine sans oil cap, but thankfully escaped anything nasty happening. The actual crank failure was as a result of a fractured fan boss which very effectively cooked the engine and caused the crank to fail. This was in the late-90s so my memory decided to mix 'n' match the wrong events.

As it was 2cv twaddle, we forgive you.

Yeah, let you off.

I've had the fan boss fracture too! It was on the motorway up by Yorkshire. Only noticed it when we pulled off for some reason. It was a very odd noise.

Did my fortnightly trip to Birmingham in the mighty Deuche now its back in service. Its so cheap for these regular trips, around a 2 hour drive there but a lovely way to get there and back with audio books playing.

Very windy today on the motorway! Overtaking HGV was not fun. Lol! I put a bungee cord on the bonnet for the return journey, just for psychological value...

Absolutely howling, brave little car reduced to 50mph at times, either because of the headwind slowing it down, or extreme sideways buffeting. Didn't go much above 60mph the whole trip, and remembered that it's significantly more economical when you do that isn't it. Used less fuel for sure. I more often keep to around 65 mph I suppose.

Shiney

Chromed or stainless///

Stainless. Though the cross box is polished and looks like chrome.
The heat exchangers are un polished, and I wondered if they could be painted, just leaving the actual pipe bare.

why would you paint them? wear sunglasses when lifting the bonnet.