My dash is in terrible condition, I looked at the classic industries catalog but there are no repalcement dashes for my 82. I want to either replace with an original or get a completely different one, but it has to be a direct fit. Any ideas, thoughts or opinions?

 

the 82-84 and the 85-92 dash pads had a cosmetic difference, but will interchange with eachother. I have a dash assembly from an 88 firebird and I'm using my original 84 T/A dashpad. the only difference is the 85-92 are rounded off on the front edge rather than being more squared off with the indentations (very hard to describe but you probably know what i'm talking about). So search through the classifieds for any used firebird dashpad if you don't mind the cosmetic difference

 

The particular dash in your car was used from 1982 to mid-1983. It used snap in speaker grills with squared off corners. It also have the "simulated stitching" on the outer edge. These were very prone to cracking from the speaker grill openings.

The mid-1983 to 1984 dash pads are identical except for the speaker grills and the openings. They have rounded corners and the grills bolt in(this design continued to 1992)

If you want a like new dash and money is no object, I'd send your dash pad to Just Dashes in CA for restoration. It will run about $400-$600 but it will be PERFECT when it comes back.

 

I already picked up a nice dash pad on ebay, I really mean the ENTIRE dash.