Chev235,
Let me share a quick story with you. When I first began, long story short, I learned at an adult school body shop. The instructor was talented beyond comprehension and we all felt gifted to learn from him. My, then girlfriend, and I spent about 2 months getting her 65 mustang ready for the paintbooth. When we were completely ready and everything was scuffed and ready to shoot, the shop teacher came over to inspect our handywork one last time. (He was always available and had helped us with questions many times and a very nice guy). Upon inspection he found a little crack inside the truck lip just below the rear window. He proceeded to pull out his pocket knife and dug it in as deep as he could, then twisted out a chunk of filler, closed his knife, and went on to the next student with a question.
The moral to this story is if it isn't right, then do it again. I learned a lot that day and his actions were better than hours of lecture. Our beautiful paintjob would have cracked and desaster would have caught up to us eventually.
I would advise....I know....removing the panel and migging in another patch. You will be happiest with it that way. The post about putting in a sliver of metal and smoothing filler to take up the gap will work fine if you are OK with that. It would just always bother me...thats just me.
One other tad of advice would be to tack it in place and make sure everything is a perfect fit before running the bead all the way around. With a few tack welds you can often move a piece slightly, or break a couple and jostle it to be perfect then proceed.
Good luck with it!
