Question on converting from an 8 speed cassette to a nine speed.

This may be a naive question but since I have never done this before
and since one of y'all may have, I thought I'd ask. I have an 8 speed
cassette on the rear wheel of my mtb but I want to swap it for a nine
speed cassette so that I can use my XTR shifters. Can I just swap out
the cassette and chain and have my life be good or do I actually have
to exchange the rear hub?

Easy or not?

dj.

davej1s wrote:
This may be a naive question but since I have never done this before
and since one of y'all may have, I thought I'd ask. I have an 8 speed
cassette on the rear wheel of my mtb but I want to swap it for a nine
speed cassette so that I can use my XTR shifters. Can I just swap out
the cassette and chain and have my life be good or do I actually have
to exchange the rear hub?

Easy or not?

dj.

The hubs are essentially identical. Swap the cassette and shifters and
go.

Jeff

Thanks Jeff,
I had done a search on the group and I believed that to be true but
most of the references were sort of tangential to my core question.

Thanks again!
dj

On 1 Sep 2005 20:21:48 -0700, "davej1s" wrote:

This may be a naive question but since I have never done this before
and since one of y'all may have, I thought I'd ask. I have an 8 speed
cassette on the rear wheel of my mtb but I want to swap it for a nine
speed cassette so that I can use my XTR shifters. Can I just swap out
the cassette and chain and have my life be good or do I actually have
to exchange the rear hub?

8, 9 and 10s Shimano[1] are pretty much everything the same except the
cassette, the chain, and the right shifter.


Jasper

[1] With the exception of Dura Ace 8 and new Dura Ace 7800 10s.

Thanks Jasper,
Those items (cassette, the chain, and the shifters) are exactly what I
want to change. I just was concerned that I would get into some sort
of spacing/hub length/cassette-too-long issue. Since I have never
really seen different width hubs sold for the installation of the
cassette I was pretty sure that I was OK. Now all I have to do is wait
for the UPS dude.

dj

In article .com,
says...


This may be a naive question but since I have never done this before
and since one of y'all may have, I thought I'd ask. I have an 8 speed
cassette on the rear wheel of my mtb but I want to swap it for a nine
speed cassette so that I can use my XTR shifters. Can I just swap out
the cassette and chain and have my life be good or do I actually have
to exchange the rear hub?

If this is a shimano hub, just do as you say. No need to change the hub.
-------------
Alex

Jasper Janssen wrote:
8, 9 and 10s Shimano[1] are pretty much everything the same except the
cassette, the chain, and the right shifter.

That's interesting. An 8-speed chainring would work with the narrow
10-speed chain?

-Mike

On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 19:53:04 GMT, none wrote:

That's interesting. An 8-speed chainring would work with the narrow
10-speed chain?

Yes. Chainrings and the inside of the chains for all derailer geared bikes
are 3/32" wide, what gets thinner on the thin 10s chains is the
sideplates. 10s cranksets do have the chainrings slightly closer together
than 8s or 9s, which helps to prevent the chain from skating when you up
or downshift (when the chain is sort of between two rings, it still can't
actually fall down between them, but the teeth of the smaller ring can
interface with the chain sideplates in such a way that you lose traction
for a little while), but this is not required for functionality. Front
shifting might be very slightly better with matched sets of everything,
but it's just not all that critical.

Jasper