Turned out one of the front shocks was bad so i replaced them both. But i couldn't torque them down all the way because the thread was too short. We (a local mechanic and i) verified the MPN which was correct so we didn't order the wrong product. This likely was a production error or something.
Anyway. We made the thread longer and all was good.
Some other things i fixed:
Faulty speaker wire. Pinched between rear panel and body.
Replaced some more vital parts:
Timing belt, idler pulley, idler gear pulley, tensioner and waterpump. There was some minor rust on the inside of the waterpump but nothing sandpaper couldn't solve. The cooling fluid was also in good condition so no worries there.
Bolts from tensioner had a little surface rust.
Last 3 weeks the 4runnes had cold start problems. I had to let the engine turn 6 to 8 times before he started. With lots of white/grey smoke as a result. So i checked the glow plugs by removing them from the block to test them with a seperate 12v battery. All of them worked so the problem was elsewhere.
The 80amp fuse was also good but after testing we measured 0.0v on the supply rail. The problem was a melted isolation washer between the rail and engine block.
Starts within a second now. So before removing the air duct and 4 glowplugs, be sure to check voltage before and after the rail.