MOLINE, ILLINOIS (September 24, 2019) — Overtime Diesel, a light- and medium-duty truck-maintenance, repair, and parts-manufacturing business is expanding from its 2017 start-up location in Taylor Ridge, Illinois to the Quad City International Airport's Industrial Airpark in Milan, Illinois.
Overtime Diesel is expanding from a 2,400 square-foot rural location into a 9,300 square-foot light-industrial space with adjacent expansion-ready land. The move was formally approved by the Metropolitan Airport Authority board on Thursday September 19, 2019.
The business acquired the building and remaining business assets from the former land-tenant Antler Inn Manufacturing, taking over the 22-year remaining land-lease with the airport authority. Overtime Diesel is making significant improvements to the facilities, including three floor-mounted hydraulic lifts, new customer and employee interior-spaces, a new driveway and parking, and upgrading the on-site precision metal-parts-manufacturing operations.
Overtime Diesel specializes in after-market parts-manufacturing, maintenance, and repair for light- to medium-duty diesel-trucks, including engines and suspensions. The business currently focuses on trucks 1-ton and under, as well as some farm equipment. It primarily serves local and regional construction, industrial, and utility-based companies' truck fleets.
Previously, the business also focused on performance rebuilds for competitive truck-pulls, and the founder Ove Cano hosted the Rock Island County Fair's Diesel Drag in 2019. With the move to the QC Airpark, Ove says the focus is now handling a larger work-load and increasing turn-around times. Ove, who is self-taught on CAD renderings and CNC milling for after-market metal part-manufacturing, has 3-D printers he uses to produce prototypes to ensure parts fit the project specs.
Besides opertating precision CNC mills, Overtime Diesel does welding and fabrication as well as rebuilding diesel engines and Allison transmissions. “We work on a lot of head-gaskets, turbo-engine and injector-systems, and repair-and-replace suspension-components and traction-bars.”
Cano started working on diesel-trucks right out of high-school in 2011, and started Overtime Diesel in 2017. Airport Executive Director Ben Leischner said, “We're excited that a young start-up in Illinois with such talent and drive decided the right decision for their business’ growth was to find a new location in an established area with easy access to the community.”
Overtime Diesel is planning to open the new facility at 7501 50th Street in Milan, Illinois by early October, 2019. The business has two full-time employees and expects to hire up to four more technicians in the next twelve months. Ove said his number-one employee Brett Rule coined the business name due to how many nights Ove would sleep at the shop putting in the long hours. “We're excited to be here at the QC Airpark and want to help this region grow,” Ove said.
