I was having trouble with the cable not releasing the hood. I adjusted the cable, with non satisfactory results. I adjusted the bottom mount, but not the top mount. Now, the cable will release the hood a fraction, but not enough to release the safety latch. The hood is essentially, impossible to open!!
Any suggestions?

A stuck hood is not an uncommon problem reported by 240 owners. They're tricky to adjust properly and trickier to get open when they're stuck like that. I came close to stuck once and luckily managed to get it open from above. You can try looking up from underneath the car with a really strong light to see what side might be catching and perhaps try to hook the cable from below or from between the grill while someone is pulling the hood release inside and give it an extra tug to see if it will move the catch a bit more, but if your plate is loose I'm guessing it likely won't work. Check out this old post in another Volvo forum and you'll likely find your answer in the 3rd reply down who had to pry from underneath the car
https://www.volvo-forums.com/threads/stuck-hood-release.13591/
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Dave -still with 940's, prev 740/240/140/120 You'd think I'd have learned by now

With your help, and the suggested post, I got it.
Lessons learned;
1.Adjustment is easy, but time consuming
2.If you begin the job, REMOVE THE GRILL, and leave it off untill you are certain you have it right.
3. To check alignment lay under the car, and verify you have the pin centered in the hole.
4. Verify multiple times, then tighten bolts, then verify multiple times.

Thanks for the help!