W124 sunroof repair: the reprise

[BodhiBenz1987]

Lately I've been listening to nothing but the music I listened to circa 2006-2007, and I guess my car thought it would be fun to get in on the nostalgia by making me re-do a repair I did around that time. Not really the blast from the past I wanted, but I like having a working sunroof so ...
Basically I tried to open it one day and just heard a pop and it stopped moving. Stuck shut, could be worse. Nothing was moving with the switch or the manual crank, and I could see through the liner that there was something wrong with the cable (see photo).
Today I managed to pop the liner loose and slide it back, unbolt the sunroof panel and inspect everything (kind of amazing how much of this I remembered as I went along).
Good news is the lift arms look perfect, which is what I had replaced last time. The cable, however was sort of popped out of the end of the tube, and curled up in a loop. Pushing the switch (or using the manual crank) did not do anything to move the cable at all even when I made sure the cable was free to move. I gently pulled on it and it easily slid all the way out by hand. No breaks or anything but it's all kinds of bent at the end.
The tube looks OK, however, the slit at the top seems to be a little wider than it should be right at the end (where the cable came out).
Any ideas what went wrong, and what I should do? I have a second, clean cable from a 1988 300E, as well as the tube. Why wouldn't the gear move the cable? Is it possible it popped out of the gear once it got stuck? Or do I likely have stripped gears in addition to the bent cable?
Should I try to just feed the new cable in and see what happens?