The Traction Avant has a fairly large oil cap that at least on my car is a loose fit.  Underneath it there is a metal plate with holes in it which let the oil drain into the engine when filling and presumably stop the oil from splashing out.

Unfortunately on my car, these holes had been significantly enlarged and that means oil was dribbling down both sides of the engine and creating smoke when it hit the hot exhaust manifold.

My assumption was that the extra holes were leading to excess Oil Splashing up and leaking out of the cap.   Taking a leaf out of the original design my assumption was that if I was to add some kind of mesh it would prevent the oil splashing as much and let it drain back into the engine.

I was able to buy a piece of aluminium mesh from Bunnings warehouse and assumed that a couple of layers would have the desired effect.   To start with I settled for four.

I then left on a 200km drive to the south coast.   So far I would rate this idea as a partial success.   I still had some oil leakage – but not enough for clouds of smoke to be coming out of the bonnet louvres.

My next step is to see if a few more layers are an improvement or not.