Steering wheel shake occasionally highway speed

I have a 2003 Sequoia 2wd with 3inch lift (installed by previous owner) 227k miles that at highway speed will sometimes shake the steering wheel not enough to be really bad but enough to notice maybe like 1/8thor 1/16th inch back and forth. Lower ball joints were replaced right before I got it last year and I just replaced the steering rack bushing with the ones from Energy suspension. At low speed there does not seem to be any play. I've jacked it up and checked at both 3 n 9 and 12 n 6 for play and I don't feel any at all. It doesn't get hard to steer or make any noises while turning so I feel like its no the rack but not totally sure. If it wasn't expensive I'd just replace it for piece of mind. the sometimes part also throws me for a loop but either way does anyone have any idea what it could be.

We are wanting to take this on a 2000 mile round trip instead of our ford focus because this has so much more room and just trying to make sure we get anything that might cause problems taken care of before we leave in June

 

Sure sounds like alignment or wheel balance

 

Wheel balance

 

Sounds like wheel balance to me, but it's also what another member had when he had cupping issues with his tires. That was after chasing down other things, IIRC.

I'd never heard of cupping causing vibration prior, but I searched around online after and found a bunch of people with same. Chalk it up to issues I've never had but apparently others have...

Anyway, not unheard of to have a balance weight get knocked off during a procedure, especially the ones mounted to the rim lip. But could be cupping too.

 

wouldn't wheel balance be an all the time at highway speed? ill try and swap my stock trd sport Tacoma wheels and tires on there and check since I know those don't shake
currently I still have what the guy I bought it from had them on and in the picture above its on my current trd off-road Tacoma wheels


My current Tacoma and the wheels above


how the sequoia sits currently

 

I've experienced intermittent vibrations when wheel balance was at fault. In a case like this, where multiple issues could be guilty, anything you can exclude is bonus, so your proposed solution to swap over the Taco wheels is great.

Not sure about 1st gens pecifically, but in other trucks I've owned, a lift/drop of 3" or more did require adjustments to driveline to avoid vibrations (shims or otherwise). Doubt that's the issue here ... but ...

 

Like that new bling red color.

 

My previous tundra had a Bilstein lift, aftermarket wheels, and larger tires and rebalancing always fixed the steering wheel shake. And no it didn't shake at every speed. It was always at a certain speed range.

 

I had weights come off the rear tire. Wasn't an issue until I rotated, then it would shake at 60+ mph. Got it rebalanced and it was good again.

 

Yup, you can have an out-of-balance wheel out back and notice nothing. Move that wheel to the front, it'll drive you f'n nuts. I've never been able to get anyone to tell me why it's the case - I guess the weight of the engine exacerbates things?

 

As a refresher, what are you checking with moving the wheel at 3 and 9? Is that tie rod ends? I know 12 and 6 is ball joints.

... I may have just diagnosed a driver-side TRE that needs replacement.

 

Well yall were totally right got a new set of 33s on this weekend and it rides perfectly now. No shaking once so ever.

 

Thanks for following up! Good thing you didn't throw any unnecessary money at it!

 

yeah me too i was thinking i was going to have to replace the steering rack which would of been a pretty good $$$