Well it took the comments of this forum for me to try the "knee-hold-punch technique" to get the fan removed. Worked like a charm with no damage. Once the fan came off, so did the front bearing,felt circular oil pad, retaining clip and thrust washer all together! All this time I figured a bronze bushing had given up the ghost, but not so. The play in the front housing was do to the bearing retainer working loose allowing the spherical bearing to slip which in turn allowed the shaft to wobble as it had nothing retaining the position.. Just in case I reversed the bearing on the shaft, cleaned up the inner housing and put it all back together. If you try this, it helps to use a 5/16" SS bolt (8mm) to overcome the magnetic pull of the shoes riveted to the inside. That way you can align the bearing and retaining parts into the bearing housing relatively easy. The retainer has three cut outs 120 degrees apart and must be rotated once inside the housing to secure it. That is apparently what moved and had nothing to hold the bearing in place. The rear bearing was good to go so I just lubricated and buttoned everything
up. Hooked the blower to 12 Volts and it ran smooth with no indication of a problem. BTW: the front and rear bearing look just like a heim joint you would see on linkages or high end shock absorbers. Not sure where you would purchase these in metric sizes if needed. Dodged the bullet on that one. I hope this helps someone else in the future as new units are not made anymore.
Thanks again to all the contributors to this thread. Best regards, Tom