Scrubbing absolute paths from .ter files

I have been trying to port a mega terrain made in 1.7 to 1.8.1. But I am having a heck of a time getting it to work. Were running a separate branch for our 1.8.1 build with a new file structure so the file paths are no longer the same as they were for our 1.7 branch. From what I can tell TGEA is saving absolute paths into the ter files for some things (lighting?). As when I tried porting it, it fatals out and says it can't find the .ter files once I start to load the mission. In the fatal window it gives the link to the missing terrain files, but the path that is showing in the fatal message is the path we used with our 1.7 builds file structure instead of the new location of those files. Hence it not being able to find it.

My current "porting" process is:
1) copy the ter's over
2) update the ported mission files mega terrain data blocks with the new paths to the .ter
3) pray
4) fail

So my question is how do I go about porting this terrain from one location to another since it's apparently using absolute paths saved inside the .ter file instead of relying on the mission files data blocks for terrain file path locations. Is there a way to scrub the absolute paths from the .ter files or a better porting process?

The file export option in our 1.7 build always seems to be greyed out or I would of tried that as well.