Dana 44 Bearings

All. The other day I put new shoes all around on my 1969 CJ5. After tightening the rear lug nuts, Dana 44, I noticed a little wobble/wiggle in the wheel when pushing side to side. Am I correct in thinking this is a bearing going bad? They are probably original. This looks to be a bear of a job. Any tips/words of wisdom?
TIA

 

Have you searched the site, especially the many build threads are here?

 

Check your axle flange, they like to split at the keyway.

The bearing itself is not terrible. Block the front wheels put it in 4wd low low low.

Pull flange, inspect for crack remove backing plate bolts, grease cup, seal and the thick retainer plate and keep the shims with it (zip tie to shackle).
Put the flange back on without key, use a slide hammer to pull shaft and the cup will come out first instead of being in the tube. Throw the flange and shaft as far as you can into the ocean and install a full floater kit before the shaft breaks and your tire departs the vehicle...

Or take the shaft to a press and press the old bearing off, throw that into the ocean.
Press new bearing on, put it all back together as it came apart. Check preload on the bearings.

 

If it didn't wobble before, it's not unlikely you assembled the keyway and hub wrong. You need to install the hub first and then the keyway. If you do the keyway first, it gets pushied in too far and won't let the hub seat properly. It's also likely to crack the hub when you torque down the nut, rendering the hub useless.

 

And the key goes tapered end in first and tword the shaft to correspond with the cut on the axle. But it isnt that hard to pull the axle and check everything out. If your brake line has enough play to pull the backing plate out of the way you dont even need to remove the line just set it on the ground out of the way. A slide hammer doesnt always work either. I made a puller out of an old unit wheel bearing. Tighten the 4 bolts and it pulls the shaft. You can see the backing plate on the floor under it standing up