Help with an A386

The El Primero is pretty specialized, so be careful with a local watchmaker. This is quite a project! Good luck, and I look forward to seeing your results.

I like your A386. I would look for right hands and I will wear it proudly, with its "scars" and "wounds".
I sincerely like it.

Keep it as is, it's a nice watch 😁

I just got the watch back, with replacement crystal, dial, tachy and hands.

I got all the original parts. Here's a picture of the watch and the original dial, which was hard to see under the old crystal.


It looks really nice, but it also looks different than with all original parts.

Congrats...tachy looks good 😀

Nope. I found the dial, tachy, and hands and had a local watchmaker repair and replace those.

It sounds like you would not be satisfied with this outcome. What did I get wrong?

You have the wrong sub hands if i see that correct (to short).

I think Lous is a purist. Every replacement part is a thorn in his eye but that's just my 2 cents.

Although I have offered you the parts you might need. If it was mine. I would not change the hands. I would not change the dial. I would put a replacement bezel on although it will look bright it will be correct. Let a competent watch maker wash the dial, straighten the hands, service it and live with it for awhile and see how you feel in a year. If you want a better one, sell this one and dig very deep into your pocket and buy a good one, don't hold back on what you have to pay. There is no such thing as a bargain in this arena!

Agree. Suggest send to Zenith for full overhaul. replacement of dial, hands, and servicing movement. yes, that would ruin vintage value, but I'd argue it doesn't have much to begin with seeing current condition of the watch. At least this way, you can enjoy wearing a beautiful watch.

Thank you everybody for the advice. I have so much to learn, and clearly I'm going to learn whether I like it or not.

So far nothing has been ruined, and I have options. The watchmaker returned all the original parts, including the gear that he replaced while servicing it. He replaced the dial and hands because I bought new dial and hands. I didn't know they were short, until I picked up the watch. But I could un-replace them.

@mappleluna's picture on the first page of this thread also shows short hands. Is that what comes from Zenith now?

I am worried about trying to fix the original dial, because at that point somebody could destroy something. Does anybody have a recommendation for a someone who can wash and clean the dial? The dial does also have some noticeable scratches on the sub-dials.

The original sub-dials hands aren't too bad, there are some scratches. The main hands are messed up, again it's not clear to me if I ask my watchmaker to straighten the hands if they'll get wrecked or not.

So I still have decisions to make. 😀 Even knowing it's not all perfect, I really enjoyed wearing the watch to work today. Actually, I loved it. What a great watch.

I went this route because getting an A386 that is all correct and in good condition for a reasonable price seems almost impossible right now.

Indeed comes from zenith.