Mantis towable digger, Benford ME130 excavator

Mantis towable digger, Benford ME130 excavator - information and pictures

The Mantis towable digger was a competitor of the Powerfab, Fleming, Gopher, Roughneck and Smalley digger. It was also produced by Benford and marketed as the Benford ME130. Benford are now part of the Terex company (I think) which produces a lot of plant including the former Fermec wheel digger.

The Mantis must have had a low centre of gravity and like the Roughneck has the anchor legs fixed at the rear and hydraulically raised wheels for moving about. It had 130 degree slew and was fitted with the Honda GX140 petrol engine which produces 5 horsepower and was also fitted to the Fleming Micron.

Mantis excavator. I like the brochure, "no spanners needed"! See the links below for a full size PDF version.

And here's the same machine but from the Benford company.

I've seen a few of these machines for sale on Ebay and have had a number of emails from Mantis owners. They don't seem to be as numerous as Powerfab machines so I'm not too sure how many were produced or sold.

Here's a Mantis that was sold on Ebay. Thanks to turboted for the use of the picture.

This is John's Mantis digger. He has got used to driving it but says that it is a little slow to use.

Another view of John's Mantis digger. The hydraulic pump looks fairly small which may account for its slow operation.

Steve very kindly emailed these pictures of his Benford ME130 which he has been using in France.

Steve's digger is in great condition and he is obviously putting it to good use laying some pipes.

Front view of the Benford ME130 digger in action.

What Steve says about his Benford ME130

"My experience is the digger is very fast, in fact too fast at times, but was slow before replacement of the filter. The engine on mine is 13HP but this is a modification, the seat base has been moved up and a bracket let in to support the seat. I found the company who had bought all the spares from Benford. When I called them (two years ago) they had skipped all the parts a few months before! I never understand people who do things like that. I could get all parts off the shelf, except for pin bushes, which appeared to be made just for Benford and Mantis. I had a price list and they were horrendous. To cut a long story short, I found a cheap/free alternative which has worked very well maybe better than the correct ones. 22mm and 28mm polypipe is the same outside diameter and inside diameter. Just cut a piece to fit the hole and you are away. I was prepared to change every day or so, but have never changed in 2 years. I have greased before and after every use, and dug some very long trenches.

The speed that the engine is running directly affects the output speed, more so than on other diggers I have driven. I have fitted a mower type throttle so when walking around you set it faster (after practice) and then when moving in confined spaces knock the revs back down. The output power is immense from such a small pump, but that is the beauty of hydraulics.

Towing the thing is easy using the proper wheels. The hardest thing I found about moving them is getting them on to a plant trailer, I ended up reversing it on to an Ifor Williams and only had about 2” width clearance overall."

Mantis and Benford ME130 techincal information and sales literature

If you own a Mantis or Benford ME130 you can view a PDF version of the operators manual by clicking here
Mantis sales brochure
Benford ME130 sales brochure
Link to Honda's Website where you can download manuals for all popular industrial engines as used on Mantis and Benford ME130 diggers

Thanks to John and Steve for helping out with pictures of their machines and to Wayne for the original brochures. Copyright of these belong to Mantis and Benford. Further contributions for this page will be very welcome.

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