Brittle old yellowing kitchen lighting probably has brittle and crumbling wire connections behind it as well. When you go to replace that light, you shouldn't just disconnect and reconnect the wiring as you might in a newer circuit, because the ends of the wires are likely to be worn and less stable. Cutting back the wires a bit, and stripping off a fresh contact with wire strippers, will give you a cleaner connection.
Instructions
1. Shut off the electricity to the old fixture at the house circuit box. Set your ladder under the fixture.
2. Remove the screws that hold the old light in place. Carefully lower it enough to access the wires behind it. Snip the wires with your cutters, just back from the point where they connect with the fixture wires. You should be left with three wires hanging from an embedded electrical box: one black, one white and one bare copper.
3. Strip about 3/8 inch of insulation off the ends of the black and white wires.
4. Attach the mounting bracket that came with the new fixture to the box with the provided screws.
5. Connect copper ground wire to the green ground screw on the installation bracket and tighten the screw.
6. Connect the wires from the fixture to electrical box, black to black and white to white, using the wire caps.
7. Lift the fixture to the ceiling, pushing the wire connections into the electrical box. Line up the screw holes between the light and the bracket. The base of the light should completely cover the area where the old light was and some of the surrounding ceiling. Affix the light with the provided screws.
8. Turn on the power.
Tags: black white, electrical black, provided screws, wire connections, with fixture, with provided, with provided screws