Rear wheel bearing?

After an outing on Saturday i started to get a faint grinding noise from the o/s/r as time went on it got worse usually on deceleration. I put it down to the drums being full of crap as that corner particularly had a dunking. When i got home though the inside of the wheel on that corner was covered in grease and it was dripping out of the drum.

I presume its lunched the bearing and got hot, heating the grease beyond its working temperature resulting in it breaking down.

Its very similiar to the "name that sound" thread where it sounded like a dry bearing at first.

Just trying to confirm it really. Its done 55k of mainly road miles as there were no signs of any off road use when i bought it. Its done a few outings with me in the year i've owned it though so i presume its about due for something like this.

As usual any help much appreciated. Unless you tell me my diff is shot thats something i dont want to hear!

It was my initial thought that it could be diff oil. But disimissed it as my conclusion above seemed more likely. I suppose once the bearing allows even a few mm of movement it would allow oil to escape then the problem will only get worse.
I'll follow your suggestion, as you say its not much more work.

On a side note how often should the diff oil be changed?

Once again this forum comes up trumps!

SNAP! martin mine looked just like that!

Now where would i get all the bits from? Any ideas?

Used a very good shop for other Jimny consumables before and will def use them again.

I try to do as much in one go to save all the repeat work ie my shoes look low so i'll replace when i do this so i know its done.

I know its reasonably inevitable and a down side to driving off road and I'm very good with the cleaning after and try to limit the mileage when its muddy but are there any tips to reduce the problems.

I figure its had any easy life up to now and its a combination of the mud etc.. and age related that means i'm replacing stuff. I'd expect to see more than a few outings out of the parts once i've done this run of jobs though.