[Joe's Garage]

Lift the motor W-A-A-A-A-Y up and pull the pan off. Then search for and find the chunk and remove it.

Pain in the ass = YES.
Never need to worry about what might happen with it inside = YES.

As mentioned, it's probably on top of the windage tray, or stuck to the crank or a rod. Eventually, it would probably end up down in the oil - but maybe not. It could just sit up there on top of the windage tray forever.

As a side-note, many years ago (decades, actually), a good friend of mine changed out the cam on his RAIII 1970 TA. He laid an old greasy dark-colored dishtowel in over the lifters and pushrods while he scraped off the remaining gasket material and then forgot to take it out before he put the valley cover and intake back on......

That one got ugly really fast........

Note to self after that: Always clean off all the old gaskets BEFORE you start to install new stuff or even think about reassembling.

If it was mine, I'd probably flush a couple gallons of cheap, new WalMart oil over the top of the cam/lifter area with a really big drain pan underneath. Maybe even pour it through several times, from all directions and all areas of the lifter valley, to see if it would dislodge the gasket chunk and get it down and out the drain hole.

You might get lucky.

Good luck!