Temporarily Extending X2-like Mill X Axis Travel

[No1_sonuk]

I need an extra inch or 2 travel on the x axis of my X2-alike (Warco Mini-mill/drill) to surface a long piece.
Normal travel is 300mm, and the work is 336mm.
The travel is currently limited by the handwheel bearing/mounting plates butting up against the Y axis carriage (handwheels on both ends of the table).

What problems would I have if I temporarily remove one of those end plates for this job?

[John Rudd]

As the Y axis is only supported at the outer end by the plate bolted to the X-Y table and the inner end by the nut, I dont see a reason why....

[No1_sonuk]

See attached for what I mean.

end1.jpg shows the table with some way to go.
end2.jpg shows it stopped against the carriage.

What I'm wondering about is removing the yellow plate temporarily so the carriage can move more.

[cidrontmg]

I think I would buy a couple of longer bolts (M6 I think), cut some piping (min. 6 mm inside) for 2 thick equal length spacers, fix the żellow hand wheel support with those, at the needed distance, and hope that the lead screw won“t disengage... With my luck, it prolly would...
 

[No1_sonuk]

I found a strange thing with this machine last night.

I had previously removed the hand wheel on the left side with a view to fitting a motor for power feed or CNC.  Having fitted the Y axis DRO to the left side, I decided to put the motor on the right to avoid interference issues with the DRO.  To this end, I refitted the left wheel and started to remove the right side wheel.
That's when the odd thing happened.  The table started shifting left and right by significant amounts when shoved.  The odd part is that didn't happen when I removed the left wheel.  It's like the right hand wheel is all that's stopping the table from moving side to side.

If that's the case, cidrontmg's idea wouldn't help as the shafts aren't long enough to give the extra travel I need.

[75Plus]

There is a ball thrust bearing between the hand wheel and the end cap. The hand wheel is snugged up on this bearing to eliminate backlash between the table and lead screw. (The other backlash component is in the threads of the leadscrew/nut.) When you loosened the hand wheel this allowed the table to move back and forth without the lead screw being moved.

I happened to have a spare lead screw that I could measure. I find the total length of the threads is 270 mm. The lead screw nut is 18 mm thick so all or most of that would have to be subtracted from max. travel. Just cannot see how you can get the results you desire.

Joe