I was wondering if there were variations of the dashpad for the '82 model year. Mine is black, which they all were, and looks to be vinyl covered. Were these vinyl or plastic?? And it has stitching on either side, which I'm told is fake. Were these only available on the Trans Am or was it some kind of interior option. I believe I have the deluxe interior options since my rear cargo area has the carpeted side panels, if this makes any difference. What years had these types of dashpads?? I'm trying to find a replacement for mine since it's cracked on both sides and I don't want the reproduction ones that just sit on top of the dash. I'm looking for a REAL dashpad that came out of an '82+ with the stitching.

 

The original dashpads that came in 82-84 were the ones with the two parralel lines running across the whole front of the dash pad and they came in the base model,trans am,s/e,82-84 recaros,mecham,daytonas..The 85-92 had the rounded front.Im pretty sure there the same material though.Unfortunatly theres not too many of those around that are in good shape.Good luck finding one but I occasionaly see one pop up on E-bay.Keep us posted.

 

I don't know about the Firebirds, but the dash changed in 84 on the Camaros, so an 82-83 dash should also work.

 

There were two different style '82-84 Firebird dash pads. 1982 - early-83 and late-83 - 1984.

The early style was black padded vinyl over a steel frame. It had two "fake" stitching lines on the dash edge. The speaker grills snapped in and had square corners. The fins went all the way to edge of the grill.

The late style looks the same as the earlier design but with revised speaker grills openings. They have rounded corners and are held in with studs and speed nuts. The fins don't go all the way to the end and there is a flat border that goes around the perimeter of the speaker grill.

The speaker grills are not interchangeable between the two as the pad is actually molded different in the speaker grill areas.

 

heres the 82 and early 83 speaker grilles.They are just dirty but are in excellent shape if anyones intrested

 

Firebirds had 2 dash pad styles.

Type one: 1982-1984 Used on ALL Firebirds (T/A's Recaro's etc...)

Type two: 1985-1989 Used on all firebirds. The smoother style we are all familiar with.

Type three: 1990-1992 Used on all Firebirds. Looks IDENTICAL to the 85-89 pad. Screw holes are in different locations.

 

Awsome,I never knew that,good thing to know

 

Here is the fake stitching. Its basically two lines molded in. ALL '82-84 Firebirds had this.

 

On the Camaro side, the 82 and 83 had the style pictured below. If you look carefully, you'll see the stitching at the top of the pad, not the bottom.



Then it 84, it changed over to the smooth edge...

 

The "Stitching" is what I was referring to as "two lines". I just misunderstood you.

Yup, so their is just one type of 82-84 Bird dash pad.

 

.

 

awesome, thanks for the replies and the photos...now it's just trying to find one that's not cracked like mine.

 

They are all cracked you can try to find a new one out there but they are hard as heck to find the correct one. I might end up having to find a reproduction one for my 82 pace car if I chose to keep it. Now one seems to want it even for Make me a dang offer.

 

As far as I know they don't make correct reproductions for the '82-'84 cars. At least none that I'm aware of, just the typical "generic" dash pad for all years. There's got to be some out there not cracked, it's just hard to find specific year parts especially when they are getting older.

 

Its like trying to find console parts in excelent condition, I doubt that you are going to fine an 82-84 Dash Pad in excelent condition, that someone would be willing to part with. I remeber the orginal speaker grills.

GOOD LUCK!

 

Just keep looking and checke Ebay. I checked Ebay everyday for 9 months before one came up on there and then I was the only bidder and picked it up for $25 which surprised me. It is in excellent condition. So just keep looking.

Robyn

 

Yah, I check ebay pretty much everyday just to see what kind of firebird stuff they have. Alot of it is just the same junk you find on there anyway, but once in a while there are some usable parts. I'm not trying to find one in "Excellent" shape really, just one that isn't cracked. For being as old as mine is it's perfect, minus the cracks. It's not even faded. As for console parts, I'm still trying to find an upperconsole plate since I screwed mine up. I always see the later model ones on Ebay.

 

Junk yards around here have the 82/83 dash pads quite often actually, and in non-cracked state! $50 a pop. I got one for my 84, as I liked the stitches!

BTW, Krazzy, if I remember correctly, many made an offer and you didn't think it was enough...

 

That was before I got sick & Tired of the thing sitting on my place & before The last buyer screwed me.

Heres the story.
Jan of last year I had someone wanting the car I waited 6 months for him to even pay $500 ( I know dumb Idea but I thought I was helping the guy out, since he is a Camaro club member) My husband & I gave him until Dec 31 04 to pay the car off. Well no contact with him when we talked at the meetings he always walked around the fact that he still owned us money for the car ( Oh I still have the car & the title in my name).

Also in Dec My 87 Iroc went to a shop to get some computer work done on it. they had the car for 19 days & the engine spun not one but 3 main bearings & now rebuilding the engine & tranny is going to cost me 5k.

Now back to the 82 pace car, a full year after the guy offers to buy the car from me he walks up to my husband & says he wants his money back & my husband told him he had to talk to me, Well hes called once demanding the money back all but $50 that way we can put an ad up I told him I cant afford it because right now all the money I have has to go to getting the 87 back up & running. He said he had to go & will call me back but never did.

I did have several offers on the car since he put the $500 down on the car but I had to turn them all away because He put the money down on it. Heck He even came out & Told Scott Settlemire back in Aug that he was buying the car & had planned on making another payment which never happen.

 

$5000 for a motor/tranny rebuild?? You can easily find a short block 350 for under $2000 and drop it in yourself!

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...1&autoview=sku

That's a 330hp 350 LONG block. Not sure if you can order a short block from GM or not...

 

Engine rebuild on this end is :
$1500 for balencing, Boring over .030 to make engine an 355 & parts (all the engine work)
Cam $260 (already ordered)
Edelbrock heads $1100
Tranny rebuild for Race spects $1500 (Min)
Total there 4,360
Thats not including the 2step or any other parts we are looking at.

 

before the bearings spun the car was getting just over 400ft of tq at the crank.

 

Suuuuuuuuure. And ran a 14.6.

Sorry to hijack, I couldn't resist on that one.

 

Yeppers ran a 14.6 with lanching at idol (because if I did anything else I would go side ways & spin really bad)
a Hold in the Flange to the headers, Wires burnt up & the fuel maping programed wrong. Plus that was with out the HRS on it at the time.


Heres the Dyno numbers from the shop of course this is all rw
Max Power 201.7@ 4500 RPMS
Max Torque 282.2 @3000 RPMS
You lose about 30% when you run an Auto tranny.

 

282lb/ft + 30% = 366lb/ft

 

while I was doing a search to find a replacement dash pad, stock, I noticed that some of the descriptions I found listed them as different colors. I thought that all dashpads were black from the factory to minimize road glare. Is this true or did they actually come in interior colors?? I have a charcoal interior and found one that says it's charcoal, but I also found one that is black. Another one said gray and yet another was brown. Can anyone clear this up? Was black only offered for '82 or was I wrong about them all being black??

 

They were all black from the factory. Some of the aftermarket plastic dash covers that glue on top of a cracked pad come in colors.

 

Really? Anyone have a pic of one? I wonder if it would look better than black!

 

For what it is worth. When I bought my 83 Z28 new (June, in Ohio) the dash pad cracked between the driver speaker and the defroster after only 10 months. The dealer got me a new one, under warranty, but it did not have the "stitching". It looked like the 84s. It has lasted through 5 years in Houston, 4 years in North Carolina, and rest back in Ohio (still have the car). I just figured that the 82-83 dash pads didn't hold up well and that is why the new one from GM was different.

phil