Nice fix on
both sides of the front end on that truck!
And yes, just like you stated, after making sure the bearings & races
are fully seated, you do back it off & pin it. (When I was into the rear drums
on my full floater, I found plenty of confidently shared
misinfo floating
around on the interwebs. Finally I found a Timken bearing video that
agreed exactly with the FSM -- details in this post
over here.)
NOTE: In the Timken video they were very clear about having a few
thousandths of lateral play (measured with a dial indicator) when the
bearing was pre-loaded to the sweet spot. Definitely
not the 'tightened
down to the next window' that you uncovered.
Anyway, the Timken video is a good <
4 minute watch for anyone reading this
who wants to bone up on how to set up tapered roller bearings for a long, quiet life.
Nice job sharing the documentation of how misadjusted wheel bearings can
lead to so much damage/unsafe to drive 2WD GMT400. Good, solid fix!