Well it just got worse.
Went out to finally finish up the horizontal cylinder valve adjustment. Forgot to put on the hemostat to hold the intake valve. Pushed down on the shim to get the clips out caught them with the magnet turned around and clink there it went........
With everything else going on with the biz setup, guess my season's over before it begins.
No Norton Gathering, No Triumph reunion, No auction............
So I guess I have to order that Stator now to salvage May assuming I don't manage to screw that up as well.
Some days it just don't pay to get outta bed

that's a total pain Higgy - is there no way of hooking it back up with a convluted bit of wire through the plug hole? never done it myself it's true.

Maybe through the intake. Not sure at the moment

did it go all the way down? the valve itself should be longer than the stroke so in theory (or with a little luck) it should still be inside the guide and just leaning on the top of the piston.

If this is the case, you could try rotating the cranck VERY slowly and see if you can push it up; you have to be extremely careful, you don't want the valve to bend.

the other alternative is grabbing the valve through the inlet and push it up, but you will need to "free" the inlet to gain access to it.

another thing that you could try is "sucking" the valve by putting a small silicone tube through the guide attached to a vaccum cleaner...i know it works, but again the valve needs to me inside the guide leaning on the top of the piston; I am not sure if you can get the tube in without removing the cam, still worth looking ointo it before taking the whole thing apart.

Already tried rolling the piston up,its not budging.
Gonna pull the intake off and see if I can get a hold of it. Already have the injection most of the way out of the way and yes I don't think it fell all the way out either

Mmmmm , I had to put a lot of effort not to laugh my ass off ( while I still can , more on that in off topic ) but I made it . BUGGER, something I have lived in fear of . The bloody thing is probly only just in the end of the guide and probly no longer in line with the axis , Quite possibly the retainer groove is snagged on the end of the guide too. Buddy ; I bet it will be easier to remove the head in the long run you could always try picking the whole bike up by the back wheel

seeing as we're covering all that's radical and lateral here, you can carefully insert a drill blank etc down through the valve guide until you touch something then mark it and withdraw it so you can measure it. Slightly crude I know, but depending on the dimension you could get an idea how much of the valve stem is still in the guide.