This morning my drive to work was uneventful until I hit a rough patch on the road and my steering wheel started to pulse. It was a light pulse at the beginning, pulling the wheel momentarily to the right. At first I thought it was the road, then it got worse. I pulled over and checked my lug nuts and tire pressures and tightened the one loose nut on the right rear wheel.

I continued on to work and it got worse and worse. I checked as much as I could while there and found nothing obviously amiss. However, the pulsing was much worse, so I kept it below 35 mph as the pulsing got worse and worse. I was starting to worry that I would need a tow truck soon.

I hit another rough patch of road and suddenly the pulsing went away completely, as if it had been working fine all along.

I know mechanical devices don't cure themselves, but I'm not sure where to look first. I have a thought that it could be the CV joint (or whatever we call them these days) but not sure how to check or what to look for, but one of them has a split boot. I know the previous owners and they never replaced the front shafts.

I'm short on resources, so whatever is done will probably be done by me. I just need some direction to figure out where to start.

1990 4Runner
3VZE
Auto trans
Year old tires, good tread
PS fluid OK
Belts Ok

 

Tire out of balance.

 

Probably some dirt, snow or ice on the right front brakes.

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

I think the shaking was way too sever for a tire out of balance situation, besides it fixed itself.

California central valley, so no snow or ice or mud, but I can accept the idea it was dirt on something. It did start after I hit a rough part of the road, so perhaps that could be responsible.

 

Almost sounds like loose wheel bearings except for the going away part.
Might be a good idea to jack up the front end and check things out a bit.