Thanks for the tips--will file away for future (hopefully not anytime soon!) ...since I am about 3 hours from the nearest Autozone, the 2 local parts houses didn't have Timken, so I had to settle for BCA/ SKC(?)--bummer. I got new bearings and races for both inner and outer bearings on driver's side.
(I had mistakenly taken out the race for a perfectly good outer bearing so got a new matched set.)
After about 20 hours of work, I finally got it buttoned back together late yesterday afternoon. (I was working solo and am not the fastest wrencher in the land). While in there I also put in new rotors, 100-pads (they fit just perfectly if you leave out the middle shim), and changed the fuel filter--notching the mounting screw hole on the inboard side is the ONLY way to do this without losing your religion.
The bad bearing was actually the inner bearing on DS, and it wasn't discolored, but actually chewed up the surface of 3 of the rollers, and the race had some nasty scars as well. Will try to post a pic of it. The DS was soupy--the source of my contaminated diff fluid.
The passenger's side was fine. Both birfs looked great, no abnormal discoloration, no excessive play, and the bearings looked great, so they didn't get swapped side to side.
Many, many thanks to those who have gone before and shared their experiences on this board--I followed them, plus the DVD, plus the FSM and everything was just as expected--just a lot longer in time. Getting the extra inner oil seal was a HUGE tip, as I did manage to pop out the inside circumferential spring once I installed it, and couldn't get the spring back in, so out comes the brand new seal (damaging it in the process, of course) and in goes the spare. whew--glad I ordered the extra.
Thanks to you guys for real-time assistance, to Jim for answering the phone on a weekend to help a newbie out, to Tim for the loan of the SSTs, and cdan for all the right parts.
Coming soon--rear axle service!
