Removed Spotlight, now there's a gap I can't get rid of
First, revert whatever you did to remove it. Then, run the following commands in Terminal.app:

$ sudo chmod 000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/
$ killall SystemUIServer


(The $ only represents the prompt and should not be typed.)

What I get:


To get Spotlight back, enter the following commands:

$ sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/
$ killall SystemUIServer