Breathers,Diff,transfer,Transmission

Mega-necro raise from the dead... this note is 8+ years old but still relevant..

Light flooding from rainstorms in my area caused roads to be in 16 to 24" deep water, which I carefully drove through in 4WD. Perhaps a total of 250' to 500' linear feet of fording on a paved asphalt road -- not miles and miles.

Maybe 5-10 minutes after leaving the water, I noticed a brief -- maybe 15-30 seconds -- period of strange "sewing machine oil" smell, like that quoted above.

Does anyone know how water / fording + 4WD actuators/system could be interacting in a way that produces such an odor?
Or maybe it has nothing to do with 4WD per se & is just something that happens after any fording, perhaps due to residual oils/greases getting washed out on to parts that then heat up again & cause the residue to vaporize?