On behalf of a friend - Was their ever a kombie with a column gearshift ? (Bear in mind friend is german).
In the air scoops on the rear sides their are two pipes visible ('72 microbus) - What are they for ?

and for me - I need to adjust my handbrake - where is the best place to jack up the rear using a trolley jack - also where do I put my axle stands - the only place seems to be right under the suspenion "bits" but it doesn't look as though it would be safe.

1)Never seen one, but that don't mean much...
2)It's part of the breather system for the fuel tank.
3)Mmmm.... there's plenty of places, under the torsion bar probably best, but hard to get to, or uder the tow bar if you have one. What's wrong with the original jack in the tubes on the sides? Do one at a time, that's what I do. Under the torsion bar each side would be best for jack stands, or even on the chassis near the same point. Just make sure they're sturdy, they have most of the vehicles weight at that point.
When adjusting the hand brake, make sure you've adjusted the shoes in the drums properly first. after doing that you often don't need to adjust the hand brake

3/ I lift mine under the flat base of the gearbox and place the stands under the chasis rail that the jacking points connect to [I dont have anyjacking points left]as then you don't bash your head on the stands all the time when wiggleing around under the car

If you're adjusting the handbrake on a kombi, you dont need to raise the rear. Just slide under the floor, driectly below where the handbrake arm goes through the floor and adjust the two retaining bolts on the ends of the cables.

Hey presto.

Cheers
Tom

I'm with Andy on all counts. Tom is correct, you don't need to lift it to adjust the handbrake, but you do need to adjust the drums before the handbrake.

1 dunno
2 as per andy, goes way higher than the tank to eliminate Capillary effect & cools evaporated fuel
3 rear cross tube close as possible to chassis support, best one side at a time
un-adjust handbrake at front first then adjust drums then adjust handbrake - makes sense if you think about it, most bodged Kombis have handbrake adjusted right up because they thought that the handbrake needed to be adjusted when it was actually the shoes that needed adjusting, result is :cussing

[Edited on 26-3-2003 by kombikim]

Kombis certainly never came from the factory - in Germany or Australia - with a column shift. That was only for poxy Japanese vans that had an engine hump in the way of a proper floor shift.

There have been some conversions for disabled drivers, whereby a gearshift linkage and clutch operating mechanism is placed near the wheel. But certainly not by VW as an option for normal motorists.