Sorry little bit of a wordy explanation for my situation so bare with me.

I have, as far as I can tell, a 1984 Schwinn Le-tour that came with the .833 steam and fork. I recently tried to purchase the original stem for the bike, but after test fitting it it is impossible to get the stem to tighten. This caused me to question if I had the right size so I called the friend I originally received the bike from. He proceeds to tell me that he didn't have the correct size stem so he just sanded down a standard 22.2mm stem until it kind of slid in and then banged it the rest of the way in. So my thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that he probably bulged the steer tube of the fork mean I'm going to have to get a new fork. My question is whats my best option from here? Try and source a new .833 fork? Replace the fork with a more standard 1 inch with and use one of the 22.2mm stems I have lying around? Anything else I should take into consideration if I do decide to make the swap? How hard would it be to track down the original odd size fork?