Update:progress on migrating my forum is going well.
in the process I've updated the forum to the latest stable version which unfortunately doesn't appear the previous theme is compatible with.
The good news is no posts were lost.
there still is a good bit of work required to get every thing ported over but I'm still hopeful I can get this done in the next few days.
Sorry for everyone's inconvenience while I get the fixes and improvements done.
The forum will have a new address but I'll add a redirect from the current address .
2018/01/27 Update:I was able to migrate the old layout and have most of the customization added.
It is actually going better then expected.
one of the antispam mods is causing a bit of a issue I need to look into yet.