Destroyed Hub Bearings

I found a bike with a wheel bearing so loose that the tire would rub the frame. I took the bearings apart to see if anything was wrong and found something pretty surprising. Every ball bearing on the drivetrain side was chipped and the grease inside the hub was filled with fine metal shavings (it actually resembled Arctic Silver thermal paste). After I cleaned everything out I found that a deep groove had worn into the right side bearing cup inside the hub. Here are some pics of the damage:

Here is what the left side of the hub looked like (this is a normal wear pattern):

 

Here's the super worn out right side (notice the shiny grooves):

 

Unfortunately all the little scratches and jagged edges along the bearing surfaces didn't show up well, but here's another view:

Finally I tried to reassemble the hub but found out the groove was deep enough to do this:

That's ten ball bearings where only nine should fit. Unfortunately the bearing cone no longer fits inside the ball bearings due to the increased diameter of the bearing cup, so this hub is now trash (I did rebuild it with seven 5/16" ball bearings instead of the usual 1/4" size just to see if it would work, it didn't). Moral of the story is if your wheels are wobbly, fix them sooner rather than later. If you catch the problem early you might just have to replace one ball bearing. If you wait, you might have to replace the entire hub. Here's a link for repacking hub bearings in case you have a similar problem.