We have two different engine types, but the hex-bar linkage from one carb to the other is pretty similar. Most dual-carb guys and gals here use a variation on that theme. The 'how-to' is already published here somewhere, so I'll try to find it for you.
The linkage and the fuel line are two separate projects; if you're not "that guy" with routing lines or with tensioning the cable, you'll want to have someone else with you when you're shopping for pieces.
For starters, are you able to take your engine out of the car by yourself, or do you have a VW-savvy friend who can assist? It doesn't have to come out to update your lines, but by the looks of things, it could maybe stand to be freshened up a bit.
Behind the engine, growing out of the frame horns, will be a tube about the same diameter as a pencil. it will probably have a cloth-wrapped rubber line hooked to the end of it with a coupling of some description, and that line will come around your engine on the driver's side. It's the one that enters the bottom, left corner of the picture you posted.
If I interpret your picture correctly, that line swings in from someplace around the bottom of your driver's side carb, makes a pass under the distributor and then rises up to the brass "T" in the middle of your fan shroud. I think I see an in-line filter for your gasoline in there, too.
Good so far? That line shouldn't run across the top of your engine, and the filter shouldn't sit on the generator. He'll get a little warm that way, so I'd make relocating the filter and re-routing that line the higher priority. I'd locate the filter elsewhere in the car -- outside the engine compartment and as far forward as possible in the fuel system; on the inside of the right front wheel well is where mine is. Might want to not use glass, either.
I can't tell if that's brake line going to and from the T, or if it's a larger (6mm or so) general purpose line suited to fuel delivery -- but it seems to be doing the job so far. Can you break the rubber line's connection behind the engine without too much trouble? If you can, and you can run the line dry to the side of the shroud, a little higher than where it is now and well away from the engine, you should be able to reconnect it until you have the materials to sort it out properly -- plenty of other peoples' Type I engine pictures here to go from.
My car allowed me the flexibility to run my fuel line to a central point about two feet forward of where yours is. That would be right in the middle of your back seat. From there, it splits into a line to each carb. The lines are of equal length and all my connections are AN fittings on braided line right up to the banjo bolts on the carb bodies. Those are clamped tightly over steel lines.
Here's the setup, just as a loose reference:
