putting a 9 speed crankset onto a 7 speed bike frame

Prowlus

After upgrading my bike's truvativ isoflows with a shimano xt hollotech 2 crank , I'm considering what to do with my used but still reliable isoflows with its Shimano UN26 bb .
One idea would be to stick them onto a old apollo x-rated in its frst stage of making it a workable dirt jumper(once i upgrade my main bike's forks from Toras to pkes) since the isoflows and the un26 are way more lighther than the suntour duro and bc 73 config . The only problem is that the crankset is a 9 speed optimised whilst the bike itself has a 7 speed optimised suntour crank . Is this configuration workable?

nicklouse

in a word yes.

but front shifting may be a bit off as the rings are a touch thiner.

Prowlus

nicklouse wrote:

in a word yes.

but front shifting may be a bit off as the rings are a touch thiner.

so if the chainrings are thinner than would sticking on a 8 to 9 speed chain cut down to size work?

nicklouse

8 spd chains are the same width at 7spd. use chain to match the cassette.