Risk Racing Seal Doctor Tool

It’s one of the most common and annoying maintenance issues out there: you’re having a great day of riding, but start to notice an unusual amount of dirt building up on your forks; a leaking fork seal. Ugh! By the time you’ve returned home with the bike tied down in the back of the truck, there is a pool of fork oil on the bed liner. The problem is, suspension specialists are busy and you’re lucky to get away with turn around in three days or less. But you want to ride…right now! Well, there’s a quick solution.

Half of the time, a leaking fork seal is the result of some dirt or sand that managed to work its way past the dust seal and ruin your day. The old remedy was to use some photographic film and slide it up into the seal to remove the grit. Then film basically disappeared and that solution was gone. Business cards? Too soft and they absorb the oil. Tear-offs? Too thin and flimsy. Enter the Risk Racing Seal Doctor.

Risk Racing is a moto company based mainly around making refined products for common issues and problems that have previously only had rudimentary solutions. The Seal Doctor is one of those products and, as far as I know, is the only fork seal-cleaning tool on the market.

Made of a rigid yet flexible plastic, the Seal Doctor comes in two different sizes (45mm-55mm and 35mm-45mm diameter), and uses the same principle as the film solution with a simple, yet key twist: the shark fin design actually helps remove debris from the seals rather that pushing it up into the fork internals.

Here’s how it works:

1) Remove the dust seal (easily done with a flat-head screwdriver by gently prying it down and out of the way).

2) Snap the Seal Doctor around the lower fork tube and above the dust seal.

3) Slide the fin up and under the fork seal while rotating the Seal Doctor to the right. Remove after one full rotation.

There you have it. If dirt, dust, or debris were the cause of the leakage, they should have been removed thanks to the hook-style fin forcing elements downward. Use a little contact cleaner to clean up the forks and you’re good to go (while using the Seal Doctor, some fork fluid will leak out, but only enough to get your hands a little greasy).

I used the Seal Doctor on our 2013 YZ250F during a recent ride and it did the trick. No missed motos here. It also comes with a convenient protective holder that you can just throw right into your toolbox. That’s where mine lives.

At about $25, the Risk Racing Seal Doctor really is a no-brainer. Leaking seals are like crashes: it's not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Give yourself some peace of mind and don’t be the guy going around the pits asking for photo film…no one will have any!

For more information, visit www.riskracing.com.

-Bayo Olukotun