No need to take the whole fire wall apart.

Go down to the hardware store and get a big fender washer and weld it to the body of the car.

See my pictures below. I did this repair over 6 years ago and it's still strong as ever. I think I had to cut part of the wasther out to clear a bolt, but other than that, it works great!










The cause of the damage was an aftermarket clutch cable (probably made by scantech.)

I made the mistake of using a cable from Ipd. What they sell (at least, what they sold me) is NOT the volvo original.

I'm now using a cable from the Volvo dealer, and it's light years better. It's years later and it's still as smooth as cutting butter. The scantech cable started dragging only a few weeks after I had installed it (and eventually had it pull through the firewall.)

After the firewall repair, a few more weeks and the cable broke entirely:





Scantech parts are no longer allowed anywhere near my Volvos after several other problems with their parts (including a very significant failure of lifters that were less than 10K miles old.) Live and learn, I suppose.

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http://dylans122.blogspot.com