First of all; all credit goes to Tools R Us and inkpot for pulling my tender chestnuts from the fire. Also kudos to DSRTRDR and Kernal, as well as everyone else who offered suggestions as well as references to Tools R Us' shop.
To summarize, I bought this 1996 Land Cruiser using a friend to scout it out and make the deal. I flew here from Iowa and picked up the car, and after a week of working with my friend, we drove it to San Diego for business meetings.
On the way up Coronado bridge, all hell broke loose in the front right knuckle. Since we were staying in Little Italy, we had it towed to a downtown place with a decent Yelp rating called Griffin's Auto Service. Remember this name, friends, because they go beyond mere casual incompetence or ripping people off, to near criminal negligence and price gouging/lying about service to straight out crookedness.
I do not have pictures yet, but Tools R Us documented everything.
Bottom line, Griffin's Auto Service charged me $2400 to replace a single Birfield, which they installed so poorly it was epic. All sorts of sizes of bolts were put in holes, some of which were merely riding loose in there. Studs were left broken off inside the knuckle, the brake caliper was also just riding loose on the disk, with two undersized bolts just pinning it in place, combined with the brake line tension. The front diff was nearly bone dry. There was no, and I mean NO grease in the knuckle. The only lube was a thin coating of red engine assembly lube where the birfield flat spots are. The brand new birfiled had been clamped in a vice, scoring the surface that rides on the seal with 1/8" deep scoring. The bronze bearing was free spinning in the spindle and had protruded 1/4" into the knuckle.
The amazing thing is not that this vehicle made it 300 miles in this condition without a complaint until it stopped being drivable. It's that Kevin and Dave took their Saturday to help me out. They carefully disassembled everything, found the laundry list of wrongness the other guys did, and rescued the new and old parts through their mechanical knowledge and skill. And they made sure I was educated about this vehicle throughout the process and tolerated my nosy behavior and stories.
Monday I return and we will make sure that everything is sound, and possibly get a new knuckle, because the mechanics had fudged this one up so badly in their "repairs".
Even though the current fix is permanent, it's nice to drive a car that has fluid in the diff, grease in the knuckles and all the bolts in the front wheel assembly.
I really appreciate how great these guys are. And how much help I received from the IH8Mud community!
Yeah, those guys are murders 
. How much is the correction fee? You should be able to go after Griffin's Auto Service with the documentation from Tools R Us to recover some of the expenses.