Quickly pulling together thesis after unexpected failure of oral exam I failed my oral exam unexpectedly. My advisor had the impression that it would be less formal than it was (or at least that is what he told me) and I wasn't prepared. I thought it would be more along the lines of a project proposal, but instead my committee wanted my thesis to be close to half done.

It is not. The problem I have been working on is fairly unique, and there wasn't a lot of existing work for me to base it on. I've needed to run a lot of numerical tests to ensure my conjectures are correct before trying to prove them. Consequently, progress has been slow. But there have been some results, and I know that it is a good idea.

My second oral exam will be at the end of spring, and if I do not pass then, I will be removed from the program. I'm sure I could finish this in time to graduate, but with a hard, career-endangering deadline in sight, I'm becoming very worried about the timeline. I didn't expect to be in this position.

I've contemplated switching problems to something with a more predictable timeline, but at this point, starting over seems like a poor option, even if the new problem would be faster. I've thought the same about my advisor. It seems like time has locked me into playing what I thought was a good hand, but am now realizing may not be.

Are there any suggestions or advice for how to pull research together quickly for a deadline? (Other than work like hell, which I am doing.)
If it helps, your failing is probably more representative of your committee criticizing your adviser rather than you alone. Let me guess -- you work for a assistant/junior Professor or a tenured professor who has fallen out of political favor within the department? My guess is they are "beating on you" as a proxy for your professor because that is how academia works. 

My advice to getting out of this rut is to suss out who on your committee is your adviser's enemy and work more closely with them. To handle a similar situation I had in my PhD I attended "enemy" group meetings and presented updates on my work directly to "enemy's" group. I could learn any objections to my work from the "enemy" right away before presenting in the exam. Over time the deadline for retaking exam became more flexible. I ended up satisfying it a few months before defending my dissertation. Enemy turned to friend and helped me with providing materials and access to characterization tools. Enemy-turned-friend wrote stellar recc letters and helped organize job interview for me. I ended up drafting and publishing 5 manuscripts from the research, on 2 of the papers I offered "enemy/friend" coauthorship and he/she declined. After graduating enemy-turned-friend became department chair and took away my adviser's labspace and used my PhD apparatus for his/her own research.