Front body panel separation. Suggestions?

[SelfishCaesar]

Hey guys, brand new to the forum and a proud C3 owner for a little over a year now. I've got a situation that I'm hoping someone else has had before, that would be able to offer me some pointers on what to do next. I'm in the process of cleaning my C3 up, and while I'm slowly replacing all of the worn parts and doing period corrections, I happened to notice that I've got separation on both from panels where they attach to the firewall. It seems to be the root of my door gap issue, and someone has suggested that the previous owner may have lifted her up a few too many times with improper pad positioning. Has anyone gone through this before and if so, what do you recommend as corrective measures. She runs and drives like a dream, but the gap IS annoying and now that I know there is a problem, it's in my nature to address is promptly. Your comments are much appreciated!

[MaineVette]

It looks like the body panel may have debonded from the bonding strip but, boy, that would be an odd occurrence. It would take a lot of stress to cause that to happen.

Regardless, if that's the issue you're options seem to be a bit limited if you want to save your paint job (which I assume you do). It seems your best bet may be to by some slow setting epoxy (like Lord Fusor 127 EZ) adhesive and inject it into the crack between the bonding strip and the body panel. Getting decent coverage of the old bonding surface will be a challenge. Once injected the trick will be to find a way to hold the body panel in place as the adhesive cures.

Otherwise the car looks nice from your picture!