I just took one of my snails off to replace the leaking gasket. The log had some serious gouges in it (might have been from me wrestling the snail off). You can fill the area with jb weld, slap a new gasket on it, and let it cure in a vise with the snail pointed toward the ground so jb weld doesn't run too deep into the cooling passages. I've got jb weld in the 4 cooling passages, but no thicker than .25" deep.
