While going over the grapevine, the air cleaner stud worked its way out of the carb, and fell down the throat of the carb. After pulling the heads, I found it in the #4 cylinder.

Beside pounding the hell out of the piston, and bending the exhaust valve, what else can I expect??

Had valve job done, and grinded off most of the rough spots on the piston. Cylinder wall feels pretty smooth still. Do I dare drive it to try and get it back home?

 

If you've got all the foreign objects out and the cylinder wall isn't gouged I'd run it. You can do a compression check and a leak down check to see if the rings/or cylinder is damaged. I wouldn't think the rings would be hurt unless there were some ridges in the cylinder. I'm assuming when doing the valve job all guides and seals were checked. I'm trying to think of any future damage that could be done and I can't think of any.

RUN IT and let us know how it works.