Troubleshooting (Rohloff) help needed

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I need a second pair of eyes of this...

I have a Rohloff equipped Surly ECR which I've had for four years now. I don't keep a track of the mileage but the Speedhub's oil was replaced in May 2018 and I recently decided to do it again, along with several other jobs.

One of the jobs was to heat shrink sleeve the two twist shift cables together which meant removing the EX cable box in order to thread the cables through the sleeving. However, when I tried to reattach and loop the cables around the pulley that lives inside the box; I couldn't. One of the cables was shorter than the other and when I pulled the inner's out I noticed that along most of their length there were kinks & curls. I've no idea how/when this happened but I ordered some replacements.

The bike was put back together and I've been on a couple of rides since.

What's immediately noticeable is that the shifting is now very light. For the last four years I've thought that this was normal "Rohloff" but that's not the case! I also seem to have a much wider range of gears as I'm getting up hills in at least 2-3 gears higher than previous. All good stuff which I put down to poor first assembly :D :D

On the downside there's a noticeable roughness/rumble that you can feel through the pedals under load :( :( . It didn't do this last week, so what's changed?

BB?
I've double checked and it (a UN-55) which spins fine and there's no lateral movement. The tapers are have been cleaned again are grease free.
Pedals
They're new(ish) as the original ones died. They're also well secured to the crank arms .
Chainring?
Tightly held to the crank arm.
Hub?
No sign of leakage.
Chain?
According to my Park tool it's f**ked... The 0.75 gauge drops cleanly through but does it matter if I don't have a derailleur? I've lubed it a couple of times and wiped off the excess but the roughness hasn't gone.

Any ideas? Is my found gear range and a knackered chain causing the rumble? I've been scratching my head for the last couple of days and after a bit of tinkering this morning I ordered a new KMC e1 chain along with a Rohloff sprocket removal tool as that'll need to be spun around at the same time.

If that doesn't fix it I'm out of ideas!
 
Re:

I thought I'd had a light bulb moment at 0230 this morning but after checking this morning I hadn't put the chain tensioner on wrongly :x . What is interesting(?) is that I have to wind it all the way in in order to get it right so the new chain will definitely help.

I then went out this morning and spent most of the time getting off and tinkering - I even had the back wheel off at one point but the rumble is still there :x

There was quite a bit of sludge in the old oil, so maybe it was this that was generating resistance internally and is why I had to ride in lower gears? Could it be that this "thicker" oil was cushioning the vibrations that I’m now feeling?
 
Re:

The flanks of the sprocket are no longer symmetrical so a new chain is definitely going to help!
 
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