In the interest of making life easier for a fellow Volvo enthusiast, who may run into this problem, I thought I would share my thoughts on fixing the above mentioned problem.

On my '88 245, I was trying to fold the seat back, forward, and noticed that one side of the release mechanism was not working properly.

After removing the trim, and 4 screws holding the seat back release handle, I began trying to figure out what was going on. Ultimately, I realized that the piano wire going to the one side of the seat back, attaching to the steel catch on the outside of the seat back, had broken.

Knowing that I had to get to the inside of the seat back, so that the release mechanism could be actuated, I took a razor, and cut the material on the seat back, so that I could expose the metal, and cut through the metal.

After hacking on the metal, I eventually exposed the release mechanism, pressed on it, and it released the seat back.

The conclusion that I came to with this, was that there is an existing hole, once you make some cuts to expose the bare steel. I believe that using this hole, one could get some sort of skinny tool inserted, and make contact with the release, so that it can be released. It took literally no pressure whatsoever, to actuate the release. Where the red circle is, in the photo, that is where the existing hole was, before I started cutting the metal.

Hope this helps somebody.

Scott