One of the most distinguishing features of the Syclone, Typhoon, and Sonoma GT is the aggressive style cladding that appears on the trucks. The cladding gave the trucks a much wider and lower stance compared to the rest of the S-Series lineup. The trucks use a variety of mounting pucks, support brackets, rivets, washers, and screws to fit and hold the cladding to the body.
Some pieces are interchangeable between the three trucks. These pieces are the front and rear bumper cover and support. For both the Syclone and Typhoon, the only pieces that are interchangeable between the trucks are the front fender arches and door cladding. The remaining pieces on the Syclone and Typhoon from the under door cladding, rear arches, rear quarter and rear corner pieces are all unique to either the Sy or Ty and cannot be swapped. This is due to the pickup vs SUV body style and how the mounting tabs are located on the cladding. The Sonoma GT has less aggressive styled cladding that differs from both the Syclone and Typhoon altogether. It is held in place mostly with brackets, C-clamps, and screws.
With the trucks being over 30+ years old, the cladding is well known to have become brittle and easily broken. If you plan to fix or replace your cladding, the following schematics give a detailed view of the location of all of the mounting pucks, support brackets, rivets, washers, and screws.
If you plan to replace or fix your cladding and it still has the stock rivets, you WILL NEED to drill them out to remove the cladding. Sportmachines offers a complete cladding replacement kit for both the Syclone and Typhoon.
Due to how the cladding is attached to the trucks, some bolts are hidden behind other cladding pieces. This is mainly the front fender arches and rear corner pieces on all 3 of the trucks. If you are planning to remove all of the cladding, the best method is to start with the front and rear bumper assembly for any of the trucks. For the Sonoma GT, the remaining cladding can now be removed in any order.
For the SyTys, with the front and rear bumpers removed, you will want to remove the front fender arches. Then move to the rear quarter panel pieces (everything behind the door), starting with the arches and then the lower front quarter and corner pieces. Lastly, the lower door skirt and door cladding should be removed last.
SYTYSOGT FRONT & REAR BUMPER CLADDING
SYTY FRONT FENDER ARCH & SGT BUMPERETTE
SYTYSOGT REAR QUARTER PANEL CLADDING
SYTYSOGT CAB AND DOOR CLADDING
NOTE: GM did not provide schematics for the door cladding piece. To remove, open the door. There are 5 rivets on the bottom of the cladding piece you will need to drill out. With the rivets removed, you can now remove the door cladding by sliding it in an upward motion and GENTLY pulling the bottom out so it will clear the mounting bracket.
