converting 240V ballast to 120V

[nightflyer]

I receievd a "hardly used" 1000W ballast, hood and bulb - Sunlight Supply brand - as a kickdown. Unfortunately its wired for 240v use and I can't accommodate that in my rental home (nor will I be rewiring the fuse box). After carefully removing the covers, I was glad to see that the transformer is multi-tap with an unused 120V wire awaiting my attention.
I know that a capacitor can hold a charge in its magnetic field and I am scared to death of grounding it through myself. This may seem like an odd question, but whats the simplest way to discharge the capacitor. I thought about taking the whole mess over to the house ground where the fuse box is grounded. I figured I could just remove wires one at a time touching each one to the ground rod as I go. Anybody got a brighter idea - I'm a little new to this sort of repair.

 

[cocktail frank]

you wont get jolted by the cap man, dont worry.
just pull whatever wire is spliced to the 240v wire and move it to the 120v wire.
cap off the old 240v lead, voltage can leak back thru it being its still hooked up to the ballast.
if both connectors are bare metal on the cap, dont touch em together using any metal.
you steer clear of doing that, you'll be fine.