Well my father-in-law came over last night and we took a quick look. I wanted his opinion on the play I'm feeling. We discovered that the play is in both wheels and that its not like the wheel can be moved directly in and out, like the normal end play is supposed to in the stock setup, but its a rotational play that exists. So imagine if you had one hand on the tire at 9 oclock and the other at 3 oclock, pushing with one hand and pulling with the other, the tires can be rocked back and forth a bit in this manner. You can see the brake drum moving back and forth over the brake plate when its wiggled.
The pops suggested this might mean the inner bearings are toast, as in this case the pivot point of the movement is the outer wheel bearing which means that the inner end of the axle shafts are moving around much more then the bit we're moving the tire in and out. Also, he said it felt like there was a bit to much slop in how much you could spin the tire back in forth in its conventional rotation direction before it moved the drive shaft, about 3/8 to 1/2 an inch i'd say.
We're going to have a second opinion from a mechanic friend, but at this point I think we may tear the whole thing out to look things over.
What do you guys think?