Yes call me stupid, but i forgot to put my oil cap back on and didnt realise for 2 days.. now I have oil in every possible nook and crannie under the hood, when i realised I had been driving it pretty hard and parked up and realised it was seriously smoking from under the bonnet, popped her up and realised what i had done. anyways i managed to degrease a lot of it off and out then took it for another drive but was still smoking a fair bit. im not sure if i have screwed it up or its just the oil thats on parts of the engine that get ultra hot. i know theres oil on the exhaust that i can see smoking and theres also so more coming from on or near that bolt in the picture.. what is that guys? and do you think i may have caused long term damage??

Joshstarr*

have you check underneath your car? it could be some leftover from the engine oil, but i'm no mechanic so correct me if i'm wrong........

i lost my fuel cap and did doughnuts and fuel went everywhere

it sure was funny

haha speak for yourself! i dont find this at all amusing!! who should i go see to clean it up? and was your engine bay smoking from the burning oil?
Joshstarr*

The mechanic left the oil cap off my mums Sigma one time and oil also went everywhere (although she only drove it for about 30mins before she realised). I always check simple things like that if a mechanic has touched my car (I normally service it) because they do it all day long and it would be easy for them to overlook something simple like that.

I wouldn't think it would do any long term damage as long as you didn't lose to much. Having said that I am also no mechanic. It depends on how the engine is lubricated. If having the cap off prevents the rest of the engine from getting oil than yes, it would cause uneccesary wear. How much oil did you lose (the dipstick reading)? Because if it was still above the min mark then you should be ok :D

yup was just above the minimum when i checked. but it was still hot in there and wasnt exactly sitting in the sump so cant be sure about the reading.. i didnt wait till it had completely cooled down when i topped it up a bit either.

waht can i say except...........dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
unlucky.
:lol:

Josh, I cant see it would have caused any major damage, you just lost some oil through the cap and got it everywhere, no biggie.

I would use that degreaser that is in a can from Super Cheap as it is very good at removing anything oil related, buy about 5 cans, cost you about $10 max at $2 a can and spray the whole engine bay and also spray underneath the engine to rid any oil deposits there might be lurking under there and that should fix the oil problem. ;)

Once when changing the oil I didn't have a funnel and I was starting to get really pissed off. So I blocked the oil container with my hand and tried to quickly stuff it down the hole. Of course I got a fair bit over the exhaust manifold so I brought out the fire extinguisher and left the car idling to burn it off :)

yup problem solved i paid the caltex car wash service 20bucks and they cleaned and degreased the entire engine bay for me. there was still a slight smoky smell the next day but it has gone now guess it burned the reminence of it away eh

haha... sorry josh, but i just laugh every time i read this post.. haha... but only because i could see myself doing the same thing :lol: :lol:

hahah well i advise against it. sooo not a good thing!
shit happens eh!

I always put the oil cap over the bonnet latch, that way you can't close the bonnet and won't forget to put the cap back on, unless you forget to close the bonnet.......

dont say it'll never happen ;)