I just went through this with a restore of a Teed Off. When I first started ,the only way to get the balls OFF, was to seperate the ball from the base, remove the bulb, then the base. The bulb no way would pass through the base. If you had a bulb burn out were you EXPECTED to seperate the ball from it's base to get to the bulb ? I modified some led's and sanded the base a little so now you can pull the ball and base together over the led, but the base is still snug enough to wedge on the lamp socket.