I'd say it's better to just replace the film then source a new panel. It will take a lot of work, and it's difficult, but I'd say that getting that out of the way now is better then spending $100 on a new panel that will end up with the same issue in time.
Side note, you have an oddly labeled 1400 there. Usually 117MHz units don't have any /177 identifier, just "1400cs" or "1400c", the identifier was reserved for the 133 and 166MHz units. Or so I thought. Late production run maybe?