He shall be 86’d no more

Jensen Jennings
Posted 7/20/21

For his entire life, Cody Rinehart has loved working on cars and motorcycles, but now he has the opportunity to live out his dreams with his own shop in Torrington.

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He shall be 86’d no more

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TORRINGTON – For his entire life, Cody Rinehart has loved working on cars and motorcycles, but now he has the opportunity to live out his dreams with his own shop in Torrington.

Rinehart opened 86’d Rod & Custom five months ago in February after he re-did the entire shop to fit his needs.

“I’ve been doing motorcycle’s my whole life,” Rinehart said. “I grew up around it. In 2008, I went to [Motorcycle Mechanics Institute] in Phoenix for motorcycle technician school.”

Rinehart said he had to go to MMI in order to work at a dealership. After graduating from MMI, Rinehart moved back to Wyoming and got a job working at the Harley Davidson dealership in Cheyenne. 

After working at the dealership for about two years, Rinehart had a bit of a falling out with the owner and then headed to Las Vegas to work and learn there.

Before opening 86’d, Rinehart moved his family back to Torrington after his dad started to have some health problems. He didn’t have motorcycle work here, so he got into doing heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) and refrigeration work.

“We moved back here to be close to family and I didn’t have any motorcycle stuff to do around here other than my own,” Rinehart said. “I started doing HVAC and refrigeration and did that for about seven years.”

When Rinehart initially opened his shop, he was unsure where he would get his customers from. His clientele has grown organically from word of mouth and advertising. Rinehart said he has people from all over southeast Wyoming and the Nebraska panhandle coming to his shop to get work done.

Rinehart does a little bit of everything at his shop. He will do anything and everything with motorcycles, but mainly works on Harley Davidson bikes. He does things from paint and upholstery to engine and performance work.

“When it comes to other brands like Victory, Indian and imports, I’ll try to help if I can,” Rinehart said. “Specialty tools are expensive, I got about 30 grand worth of specialty tools for Harley and to buy specialty tools for an Indian, Victory or Yamaha, it’s hard to justify since there’s only a few of them around here.”

When Rinehart works on any customization project with a customer his main focus is to ensure the project is safe. If the project isn’t safe, Rinehart said he won’t even touch it. He wants things to be affordable for his customers and to work within their budgets.

Rinehart said the most important thing to him is getting bikes back on the highway and people riding motorcycles and driving hot rods.

“I’m super into supporting the community when it comes to the motorcycle and hot rod scene,” Rinehart said. “If us young guys don’t do it, who’s going to? It’s going to go away, and I don’t want to see it go away.”

The important thing for Rinehart is to be able to do what he wants to do. He’s never been able to do that and now that he has his own shop, he’s able to spend more time with his family. Rinehart and his wife Kayla have four kids, Kaden, Chevelle, Nova and Harley. 

Another important thing for Rinehart was to bring a shop like this to the Torrington community. He’s been working on motorcycles and hot rods his entire life, but never had the financial means to start one of his own. He rents the facility from the owners of Deacon’s restaurant.

Rinehart said the business is a total family effort. His wife helps with the business side of things and his dad helps with the repair and fabrication side of things.

When Rinehart was thinking of a name for his business, 86’d Rod & Custom jumped out to him pretty early on. He had worked for multiple different shops in the past and oftentimes felt he was kicked out of the situation.

“I worked in a lot of shops, and I always felt like in most of them I got kicked out of,” Rinehart said. “Whether it was attitude of them, or attitude of me, most of the time I fired myself. I didn’t like the work that was being done at shops I was at; I didn’t like the way the work was being performed or didn’t like the way things were being run. There was always something I didn’t enjoy.”

Now that he owns his own shop, Rinehart knows the only way he can get 86’d now is because of him and him alone. He said he would rather fail doing his own thing knowing he gave 150% and can always look back on the experience knowing he always gave it his all every single day.