Alex. I thought about the inertia of the oil resistance, the shutter operates in a plane of minimum resistance, but the mirror might be a problem, depends on the timeout allowed by the firmware for movement before a fault occurs.
David. I checked the operating temps of Electrolytics and micros etc, and they are rated to at least -40c.
In the end, as Bojan says, perhaps you lot have saved my 40Ds life
.
Still, im not totally convinced its impossible, but given the hassle, not worth the bother, but I must admit, if it did work, it would be well worth the "been there done that" grin factor.
The grin factor is not to underestimated gents, some of my most satisfying daft projects were due simply to the grin factor
.