Changing a .deb name consistently. Easier to build from source?

[shaulka@bezeqint.net]

How can I change a deb name in a consistent manner without building
it from source? Will it be easier then building it from source? For
example, can I extract it with dpkg-deb, modify a few files and 
repackage it?

The problem I have at hands is that I have a kernel image
    kernel-image-2.4.19-486custom.3_486custom.3_i386.deb 
and I want it to become 
    kernel-image-2.4.19-custom.with.aic7xxx.probing.3_custom.with.aic7xxx.probing.3_i386.deb

The thing is that this is an old machine so building from source takes
a while. In addition it will let me learn a few things about the
internals of the deb format.
-- 

    Shaul Karl, shaulka@bezeqint.n e t