Thanks guys, yep will go and have a word in the intro forum in a couple of minutes.
And yes it is out of warranty but we got it through a dealer who set us up with Toyota finance and offered an extended warranty up to 150,000k's. Which is where that comes into it.. btw.. if you can avoid TFS then do so, they are slightly painful to deal with at times!!

Ok, the report we got from Toyota mechanics today told us they thought the burning gear oil smell was coming from the crack in the Cat and that it was filtering in through the cabin air intake. Thus our reason for asking the question here because a) we honestly don't think the smell from a Cat (operating or drawing extra air through a crack) would be anything like the smell of gear oil and b) as far as we know its located no where near the intake filter.

It could be the boot at the top of the shaft and we haven't looked at that as yet but will do tomorrow when we get it back (found that in the forums here).

Our main concern is if there is a known issue with the gearboxes in these and they give us the run around until it is out of warranty then we are up the proverbial creek with a bung box.

We are going to drain and refill the gearbox before we do much more with her and see if that makes a difference.

Any other ideas would be helpful as we are flying blind here.. we have mechanical minds but are not inclined to pull the box just to be certain lol.

Cheers.