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Dear Dave Stevens,
Hope you're well and stay so!! As to shifter knob deterioration, you're correct: once the polymer starts to deteriorate, nothing adheres to it. The polymer is akin to wood: before wood filler can adhere, all rotten wood has to be removed. Wood filler - even epoxy-based wood filler - doesn't bond with rotten wood.
As to the over-drive switch button, there is just enough slack in the wiring to pull the switch clear of the shift handle body. Use a small nippers to cut the wires as close as possible to the over-drive switch's contacts. I believe the wires are "tack welded" to the switch's contacts: a hot soldering iron did not allow me to free the wires from the switch.
The wires - once stripped (1/8" / 3 mm suffices) will have to be soldered to the switch's tabs. Once done, the switch can be removed any number of times, simply by touching a soldering-iron's hot tip to the switch's tabs.
Once I remove the handle - a violent upward "yank" usually suffices - I run a short length of seine twine (thin, braided nylon string masons and carpenters use "to snap" a chalk line) down through the shifter handle's switch opening. I knot the seine twine around the wires, and pull the wires through the handle's channel, as I press the handle down on the square shaft.
As to the price of a replacement shifter handle, I'm disinclined to complain. It is little short of amazing that Volvo still supplies any parts for cars that are close to 30 years old.
Hope this helps.
Yours faithfully,
Spook
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