Backup / Transfer old save files for ATS?

[anomaly.va]

I know it might sound dumb, but hear me out, there is a reason for this.

When 1.40 hit, I was still running vanilla with no mods, and did so for a time. Almost immediately I noticed the washed-out appearance of concrete roads. I tried adjusting the brightness, it did nothing to help. I have heard since that disabling SSAO will help with correcting this (I presume it is a case of some hardware works better with this update than others without tweaks). So, just disable SSAO in graphics options, right? Not quite so simple for me.

You see, I had no mods installed when 1.40 hit. Still had none when I noticed the washed-out daylight appearance of concrete.

However, between then and discovering the fix of disabling SSAO, I DID pick up a mod or two - specifically the Uniden CB radio (per workshop - this mod needs work BTW - cord swing does not look natural at all - I am a former trucker and know), which I don't need as I don't do TruckerMP just yet, and a Peterbilt 386 mod I had apparently not been looking in the right place for.

I have found out since then that the Pete mod may have been a pirated version, which opens up a can of worms, but I did not know, and everything looked legit -- I have posted about this previously. It is this mod I am concerned about. However, it was not present when I got the 1.40 update - the issue I saw was not a mod, because I didn't have it then.

I had similar issues with mods and updates with BeamNG.drive, and I wound up wiping it out and reinstalling before it would behave. I am hoping this approach will fix my game and remove any possibility of malware from a pirated mod.

ATS 1.40 says incompatible mod in all my post-update saves, which sounds ominous. So, to be safe, since this mod has possibly tainted my saves since it was installed, at this point, I think it's probably best that I revert to the last pre-1.40 / pre-mod save.

Which sucks, because I had leveled up twice and earned $30M+ since, as well as traveled about 25-28% of the map. Small price to pay to get rid of a potentially problematic mod issue. And it's really not as huge of a setback as it could be, considering (Level 50, $17M and 25+ garages / 125+ drivers/trucks/trailers from Level 53, $47M, 30+ garages / 150+ drivers/trucks/trailers). Could be a lot worse, I could have no old saves left at all.

So, what I've done so far:

Reverted to 1.39.x beta.
Loaded the most recent compatible save.
Quick Saved THAT save.

Per a page I found, copied folders with random numbers it claimed were my profile / savedgame files over to a backup folder on another drive. These folders are named

steam_profiles(1.39.x.ys).bak
where x.y range from 2.2 - 3.3 - 3.10 - 3.13 - 3.17 - 4.5 before arriving at steam_profiles(1.40.1.0s).bak

So, what do I do now? I presume if I uninstall and reinstall with 1.40 and no mods, all should be well if I copy all these back over except the one with 1.40 in the name. Is this correct?

The idea here is, I want to backup this save and any previous 1.39-compatible saves to my secondary drive, then wipe and reinstall ATS with the 1.40 update without the mods, which should work. So, my question, what do I copy to transfer the older saves (and ONLY the older saves) elsewhere while the current install is being wiped out and replaced?

Or does any of this even matter? Did re-loading and quick-saving the last pre-update save perhaps set a last-known game progress point on Steam for the new install?