I was noticing a little "tick" in the steering wheel occasionally when turning, and after a little poking around and some research concluded that my steering u-joint needed replacing. Ordered the new part and started soaking the old unit with all known penetrating fluid to ease the process of removal. I followed all reported tips and tricks, but what started as a task turned into a battle, and finally a war. After tapping, then banging and then pounding to get that thing off, I finally ended up cutting that little sucker into bits to get it off. Slathered the splines with anti seize and put the new part on and voila! no more ticks in the steering. But the SRS light was on?! The reset wouldn't work, so more research and I found something on volvo forums entitled "I blew up my Airbag". In that case, he had been pounding on the u-joint as part of a steering rack replacement. I learned from his experience and write up, and just wanted to add some additional documentation.
The clockspring is what got broken from the pounding, and he shows how to get to it. He broke his ignition key moulding, here is the tab you need to depress:

my damaged clockspring looked like this (you can see that something is wrong)

This part was broken off

All back together now, no explosions.