2006 F-150 Owner Transforms Truck into a Mean Green Machine

Instead of letting a body shop turn his F-150 from blue to green, this ambitious and hardworking Ford truck driver does it himself.

All Ford trucks are purchased. After that, many of them are customized. Those pickups fall into one of two categories: Built and Bought. When a young man named Andrew, the face of the YouTube channel Andrew Does Life, wanted to change the color scheme of his 2006 Ford F-150 XLT 4X4, he didn’t just hand it over to a body shop with a big check. He did it himself.

Not that Andrew’s truck needed a makeover. It was already a handsome rig with a True Blue paint job and Pewter Metallic lower body trim.

But you all know how it is owning a truck. There’s always something new you want to do with it. Andrew wants to stick with the two-tone look, but go with Olive Drab Green Raptor Liner on top and black on the bottom. Since he’s going to transform his truck (almost) singlehandedly (he gets some help from his dad, brother, sister, and wife), that’s easier said than done.

Before he can even start sanding, Andrew needs to remove his truck’s bull bar, front and rear bumpers, and fender flares. He uses an orbital sander loaded with 180-grit sandpaper to remove the Raptor liner that’s already on the bumpers and get them to a dull finish that’s ready to accept new black liner. Andrew points to the part of the rear bumper where the bumper and its grippy top tread plate meet and says, “In some of the finer areas, you can see how up here … still has a bit of a shine to it. So I’m going to need to go in there with a piece of sandpaper by hand and manually get out some of these things that the orbital sander was not able to reach.” The plastic parts will need a coat of adhesion promotor before they get sprayed with liner.

The following morning, Andrew sands off the fender flares and wipes them down with grease and wax remover. “We’re going to be spraying this with the black Raptor liner. We’ll probably be doing it at a lower PSI than the body of the truck because I want these guys to have a much more thick and rugged texture than the actual body of the truck.” When he’s done spraying, the bumpers and flares have two rich coats of rough black armor.

Then it’s time to sand the F-150 and mask off all of its unpaintable parts. Once Andrew has the Raptor liner mixed and ready to lay down, he starts with the roof as a sort of test panel, then moves on to the rest of the body.

Even with a power sander and help from a couple of his siblings, Andrew puts in a lot of work to turn his truck green. He quickly learns his least favorite part of the process. “Painting? Not a big deal. Sanding? Not a big deal. Wiping everything down? Not a big deal. For me, maybe it’s just my personality … the tediousness and the attention to detail required to do … the masking was the most annoying part.”

After Andrew lays down the last of the liner and reassembles everything, he shows off his accomplishment. It’s a looker that seems ready to roar through jungles and fly down forest trails. All it took was some elbow grease, a family working together, and the determination to build something original instead of buying it.

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Derek Shiekhi

Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.

After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.

While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.

Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.

In addition to writing for a variety of Internet Brands sites, including JK Forum and Ford Truck Enthusiasts, Derek also contributes to other outlets. He started There Will Be Cars on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to get even more automotive content out to fellow enthusiasts.

He can be reached at autoeditors@internetbrands.com.

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