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Speaker John Boehner and House Republican leaders are scrambling to line up support for a vital budget bill, as objections from both sides of the aisle cloud the forecast for a Thursday vote on the legislation.

The bill narrowly cleared an important procedural hurdle shortly after noon, on a tight 214-212 vote. This tees up a final vote on the spending package in the next few hours. Boehner is urging lawmakers to back the bill, to avert a partial shutdown when current funding expires at midnight.

"If we don't finish today, we'll be here 'till Christmas," he said Thursday morning, calling it a "good bill" and voicing confidence that it will pass.

But the procedural vote signaled the bill remains on shaky ground. It only advanced after GOP leaders convinced two rank-and-file members to switch their "nay" votes. All Democrats voted against it, while 16 Republicans defected.

Conservative lawmakers are angry they're not using the spending bill as leverage to defund President Obama's immigration executive actions.If more defect, that leaves GOP leaders relying on Democrats to help pass it. But House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is trying to extract new concessions -- namely, the removal of campaign finance and financial regulatory provisions that she and her colleagues don't like.

If they can't pass the bill, the sharp disagreement is likely to force lawmakers to, for now, pass a stopgap measure to buy time, probably just running into the weekend. That's because regardless of what the House does, the Senate probably can't handle the main spending bill until Friday at the earliest. And the chamber might not be able to get to a vote until Monday.

A senior source familiar with the appropriations process indicated to Fox News that the short-term "bridge" to avoid an immediate shutdown would likely run until midnight Saturday -- but could go longer.

But whether they can clear the larger, $1.1 trillion spending package to fund the government through fiscal 2015 is a very open question.

There are some real problems with finding the votes on both sides of the aisle -- more so than usual.

At a minimum, Republicans go into most fiscal bills lacking 30-plus votes from their side. This bill is no exception, particularly with conservative members upset about the GOP leadership not mounting an immediate fight to defund Obama's immigration executive actions.

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House Republican leaders scramble for votes on spending bill, as problems erupt - VIDEO: Republicans express ...