Best way to pull a setback condopak without wrecking the closet?

I did one of these last spring, a 3.5 ton unit in a hall closet with about fourteen inches of working room, and I went the parts route. The blower assembly came out as its own piece, the coil section separated from the cabinet at the sheet metal screws, and the empty shell slid forward on its own once it was light. Carrying each piece through the hallway was easy and I never had to worry about bashing a door frame with a heavy cabinet.

The connections were the annoying part. Refrigerant lines had to be cut and later re-brazed by my tech, the condensate trap came apart fine, and the electrical whip was just a couple of wire nuts and a disconnect. So yes, more steps, but none of them hard, and honestly labeling the wires with tape before disconnecting saved me on reassembly. My concern with building rails whould be the time spent fabricating something I'd use once. If you can pull the blower and coil out separately through the front, the bare cabinet is often light enough for one person to walk forward. Given your foot of clearance, I'd measure whether the cabinet depth even lets it come fully out with the return plenum attached, beacuse sometimes the duct connection decides for you.

I'm on the slide side of this one. Last summer I pulled a four ton condo unit out of a bedroom closet to swap the cabinet, and I tried the piece-by-piece method first because it seemed safer. Big mistake in my case. Once the blower and coil were out, the empty shell still fought me in that tight space, and I bent the bottom flange trying to muscle it past the door frame. So I stopped, grabbed two lengths of angle iron from the hardware store, laid them flat on the closet floor running straight out to the hallway, and the shell walked right out on them like a sled. Two friends lifted the front edge onto a dolly once it cleared the closet, and we were done in twenty minutes. The trick is getting the rails dead level with the unit base so nothing tips or catches. With a foot of clearance you can still build the rails inside the closet and push from the sides. Undoing every connection in a cramped closet was honestly the worst part of the parts method for me, more chances to cross-thread something or kink a line. I'd only break it down if the hallway has corners too tight for a dolly.

One thing I'd check before committing either way is whether the side and rear sheet metal screws are even reachable with a foot of clearance, because on mine they weren't, and that quietly killed the strip-it-down plan. I ended up using a stubby right-angle driver to get at the seam screws, which saved the job but tested my patience. Also worth measuring the cabinet diagonal against the closet door opening, since a unit that slides fine can still refuse to tilt out through the frame.

Back when I was doing these regularly in the 90s, we never built rails. Two lengths of pipe or even a couple of scrap 2x4s laid flat on the closet floor, and you walked the cabinet out on top of them like a poor man's rollers. Old refrigerator men taught me that trick and it still works. One thing I'd add is check the bottom of that cabinet for rust before you commit to sliding anything. Units that sit in a closet over a slab sometimes have weeped condensate under them for years, and a rotted base rail will fold up on you mid-pull. Also them old screws holding the sections togehter are ussually painted over or seized, so have a good impact driver handy, not the little cordless drill you use for drywall.

One thing that helped me a ton on a similar job was just pulling the closet door off its hinges. Sounds obvious but I wasted an hour trying to work around it before it clicked. Suddenly that foot of clearance didn't matter as much and I could angle the cabinet out on a furniture dolly instead of deadlifting it.

Curious if you've got a return plenum bolted to the top or bottom of yours. Mine had one screwed to the base and that's what killed the slide-it-out-whole plan, had to unscrew it in place and it was miserable reaching over the cabinet.

Still finding my way around here so hope this fits the thread. I haven't done a condopak but I pulled a similar closet air handler last fall, and the part nobody warns you about is getting the NEW one back in. Mine went in easier than it came out only because I measured the door opening first and bought a slightly narrower cabinet. If you're ordering a replacement anyway, might be worth checking dimensions before you commit to sliding the old one out whole, since whatever comes out has to go back in eventually.