Did I mount outdoor light fixture correctly?

I just moved in my first house, and the outdoor light near the front door was broken.

I went ahead and replaced it with a new fixture, which I've done in the past but this time I got a bit stuck.

First, I removed the old fixture and "mounting bar" from the junction box. Next I installed a new "round" mounting bracket to the box.

I was confused with the ground wire. The OLD fixture had black and white wires. The bare ground wire coming from the wall was screwed to the metal junction box ground screw (not any brackets).

The NEW fixture has black, white, and bare ground. So I followed the directions and I did black to black, white to white, and I removed the ground that was screwed into the junction box and screwed it into the new bracket's ground screw. With the slack coming after the screw, I wire capped it to the ground wire of the fixture. So now it goes wall wire bare ground --> screwed to bracket ground --> capped to fixtures bare ground wire. Is this correct or should I have left it on the metal junction box.


Lastly one more thing, there are two long screws coming out of the bracket. These are the screws that the light mounts to the wall with. They are too long, the caps do not go all the way down. Did I do something wrong or does this happen sometimes? Can I just use my dremel tool to cut them shorter? Is that bad?


Thanks!

It sounds like you removed the ground conductor (bare wire) from where it screwed into the junction box, and attached it to the ground conductor (bare wire) coming from the new fixture.

Even though this should work without a problem, I would also go ahead and splice in aground to the junction box. Can't hurt, especially since this is how it was wired to begin with, but it's probably no big deal if you don't bother.

As far as the screws go, just thread a nut onto the threaded shaft, and move it down to where you cut w/ the dremel. make sure you cut squarely. once cut, back the nut off, and it'll bend out the cut threads so that the cap nut goes on without a problem. Of course you can't add it back on, so make sure that the fixture is in place correctly before you cut!

good luck!