My 745 has the standard flop-open plastic tool holder. As is usually the case with older cars, just about everything is missing from it, except the lug wrench and handle.

While traipsing about a junkyard I found a 740 with the tool kit in the leatherette roll strapped in the trunk. The kit looked like it has never been opened or removed from the holder. That kit has the lug wrench, the red-handled screwdriver, two wrenches, and a thing I cannot identify.

It looks like a miniature version of the crank handle that the old cars had to start the engine.

The shaft is made from something like a steel cable and is sort of flexible, and the tip of the longer part (the drive end?) is squared.

What is this?

You must have gotten the tool kit from a car with power seats. (760, 780, 940, 960) The crank you describe is for manual adjustment of the seat if the motors aren't working. Its use is described in the owners manual, and there is a drawing of it that matches what you describe.

I think this is it. I don't have power seats, and my manual does not have the procedure in the seat section, so I would have been forever guessing.

Thanks!

I know what your talking about and that part did not come from Volvo.
The owner must have thrown it in the tool kit.

Any idea on what it is and where it did come from?

I'm pretty sure it is a flexible shaft screw driver. The tip accepts multiple bits.

http://www.smartprotools.com/flexible-shaft.htm

It also could a flexible drive for a socket.

But then when I went back and re-read your post, at first I thought you were describing the crank for the jack.

It looks like a miniature version of the crank handle that the old cars had to start the engine.

Then you threw in the flexible shaft.

They do sell flexible shaft socket shafts. The old owner may have found one with crank handle.

At least, not a regular one. It is a lot thinner than that. Probably 1.5 times the thickness of a BIC pen ink tube. Also, the squared end would not match any standard tool that I have ever seen.

I'll take a picture when I get the chance.