Good to hear and with a down home ingenuity (lapping paste to clean up the teeth ....) you have done what others said couldn't be achieved. In the case of the casting boss being too close,I am sure a bit of work with a grinder could clean up any excess material.
We had major floods here in 2011 and i know of a fleet of mercedes collectible cars that went under. The owner had recently dided and his decendents were too busy fighting over who got what to think of the cars.
As a result some are still not repaired ,including a 300SEL 6.3 which had a $250,000 resto in 2008.