Thanks, I'll definitely keep that in mind with you having success. I bit the bullet and bought and installed two shfter knobs from a Toronto Volvo dealer with a web discount and free shipping. I'm saving the best of the two old ones and a couple of its loose chunks as a spare to be repaired in case one of our dogs ever decides they're a chew toy.

I found an easy way to get them off if a few good pulls up don't work. At the top of the shaft, on each side are a small metal stud that engage into small plastic slots inside at the top of the handle. That's what's holding them moreso than a friction grip on the shaft as I had always assumed. Do a sudden pop straight up using a long handled pry bar leveraged against a small square of plywood layed across the sides of the console. Carefully insert the tip between the square plastic collar below and the base of the knob handle, push the collar down to gain a slot. The collar can be a bit brittle and there's a tiny lip up into the base of the handle that can get chipped, so keep it pushed down as best you can when inserting the tip. The base of the knob is quite solid for prying, both new and old handle knobs. Pry at the sides or at the corners, not in the middle where you can tear into the OD cable and wire insulation if you're not careful. Poke your fingers though the fibre comb to know where the cable is. (Why do I know this, said he rhetorically, having needed to use heatshrink to insulate a badly nicked wire.) A couple of really good pops and it should fly up and bounce off the roof like a rubber bullet. Do not have your head above the knob.

Of course the OD switch needs to be pried out and disconnected first. Elsewhere it's suggested to cut the OD wires close to the switch. There's not much slack so every mm of wire you leave, all the better. They actually easily unsolder with the touch of a fine tipped soldering iron. A hemostat can be used to clamp and hold the ends of the wires out for re-soldering. Tin a bit more solder on the wires as needed. The tricky bit is grabbing the ends of the wires just before you finally slam down the handle over the studs, otherwise the wires can fall back and be inaccessible or even pinched between the knob and shaft. I think it was Spook who suggested using thread to keep the wires pulled up and out. I didn't have thread handy, so managed using trial and error.

Doing the second knob a couple of weeks later was a piece of cake except there was very little slack in the wires for re-soldering the switch no matter how much I tried to get a litte extra from below. I'd have needed to half-disassemble the shifter assembly to feed more cable. I've needed to disassamble shifter assemblies a number of times, a non-trivial job that takes time and a fair bit of trial and error to figure out the first time. To lift the assembly up so you can remove the shaft and lower lever to lift the shift lever up a bit to feed more cable, I'd have needed to start underneath disconnecting the trans shift lever and OD solenoid wire. Removing one or both console side panels can help make things more accessible. Getting at the shift lock solenoid and microswitch is even tricky. In one caae, the microswith one of mmicroswith platic mounting pins was broken, to be replaced by a long thin screw. In another case, I decided to rip out a troublesome solenoid that didn't always want to operate freely -previous efforts didn't last long.
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Dave -still with 940's, prev 740/240/140/120 You'd think I'd have learned by now