Eye can see clearly now

Can you figure out what happens next in this picture?

 

Looks a bit like a scene from the Darwin awards or America's Funniest Home Videos doesn't it?  Well, if you answered, "I think you were using this random pile of objects to hold up the lamp while you change out the optical eye," then you would be absolutely correct!

The lamp post has this old optical eye on the side:

Vinny has been asking me if I can fix it for a while, so I decided to buy a replacement optical eye and try to fix it.  So, first I had to remove the old one.  In the photo above, I was removing the old nut and then the old washer:

  Then I had to get it open from the top to get the body of it out.  Here is where it got squirrely.  The lamp on top wasn't screwed in to the post anymore because the screws were rusted out.  So when I pulled the top of the post up to access the wires inside, the lamp was teetering precariously.  So I needed to prop it up with something so it would stay in place while I worked.

It should have been as easy as removing the old wires and replacing the new optical eye in the same way (after turning off the power of course...that's very important).

 

Unfortunately for me, whoever put in the lamp post made sure that they only allowed enough wire for an elf to get in and work with it.  So it took a lot longer than I anticipated.  Then I dropped 1 of the electrical caps down the hole.  Oops.  Then I did it again. (haha) So I used some electrical tape to keep the wires together.  Then I took the new nut and washer off:

Put the new optical eye into the old hole, and put everything back together.  That night, the lamppost lit up as soon as it was dark out.  So exciting!

So, would you ever have guessed that was what was going to happen?  Have you ever created a tower of random objects to prop something up?