To close the story - it is silent again! Very easy job this turned out to be, no surprises. So nice, I am actually considering doing the other side preemptively, just that I ordered only one bearing. What also surprised me is the performance of my electric impact wrench. It's one of those not too expensive ones, rated at 400Nm and mostly meant for wheel bolts. On one occasion it could not even deal with that (they were tightened at a garage) and in general I had little faith in it, so equipped myself with a breaker bar and additional lever pipe. There was no need Oh, and yes, the balls are supposed to be sticking out like this

Thanks for the update !

I will store the pics to show rear ABS sensor when needed, if you don't mind ...

Cheers, Bernie

As Bernie just said, Thanks very much for informing us of the outcome.
regards Jock