I am wondering if this situation is bad or not. I have been driving with this "ball joint cover"? loose for a couple days now and it seems to drive fine, a little clunking every now and then. As you can see in the pic, the threads on this part seem stripped. does this part thread into the hole ? or does it just fit in . I banged on it with a hammer and it does not want to budge much. Do I need to loosen my ball joint and/or control-arm or take it off to get this part back in ? The nut on the bottom seems tight with the pin still in.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/WiredAmerican/S...JPG?imgmax=512

 

the upper ball joints are screw in on these trucks and if that has falllen out it is not cool to drive it!!! a pic would help to see what you are talking about

 

http://lh5.ggpht.com/WiredAmerican/S...JPG?imgmax=512

Here is a link to the pic with the fallen out part.

 

your ball joint fell out!!! that is not a good idea to drive until you get is fixed, very bad things can happen!!! i would go ahead and get the rest of them done whille you are in there...

 

that's unsafe to drive! i stripped one of mine (not severly though) changing my upper balljoints last month. put some locktight red on it and tack welded it in. i had an 88 for parts and noticed someone had welded that one in too. you sould probably replace the upper control arm if you plan on keeping it for a while, mine is headed for the bone yard soon so i'm not worried if the joint goes.

 

The same thing happened to me about a month ago. I was coming home from work and the truck got loose on me, when i got it home i looked under it and the ball joint had popped out. I had to replace the upper control arm cause there werent enough of the threads left to put the ball joint back in.