Which is sort of what I did. The original was clearly a 1/8 cross section but the size for the mating connector was too small so I got one of the next size up (2-1/8x2-3/8) which fit the inside correctly. Just fitted them and the original 2x2-1/4 stretched to fit and was probably the better choice since this is a "slip" connection rather than a butt connection. For slip you want a tighter fit and for butt you want to fit the channel correctly.
Problem solved.
Back to reassembly.