VW 1600cc T2

Take good care starting up a car that hasn;t run for a long while. Check the oil, make sure it is actually oil in there and not some sort of yucky, fould smelling substance. If it is bad, change oil first. If oil is still ok, then preferably turn the car over with the spark leads off, so that she won't fire but check if she's turning OK. Last step I would advise to actually not connect the fuel tank to the carb, but put some petrol in a old canister and dip the carb fuel hose in there so that you run good clean petrol. The petrol that's in the tank is more than likely gone off completely and can actually damage the carb/engine. Even if you fill fresh petrol, only a small amount of this bad petrol can contaminate your petrol. Having a fire extinghuisher handy is certainly adviseable. If the carb is completely gummed up and blokked the petrol can spill over and any loose sparks bad earth can cause a fire.

after closer inspection, that hose you are talking about is not a fuel line, it's a breather hose and should fit onto the airfilter somewhere.
Have a look at this pic. Not sure what the different letters are as I couldn;t find the actual legend, but read the pages too, should give you some pointers...


http://thelatebay.com/index.php?threads/1600-engine-compartment-wiring-and-pipe-locations.31516/

that hose is actually a vacuum hose that opens a flap on the air filter to control warm/cold air feed through the carb to prevent carb icing in cold weather. For your efforts in bringing this engine back from the dead, just plug that hose with a suitably sized bolt or a pencil or whatever you have to hand. If you don't plug it, the carb will be drawing unmetered air and it'll throw the air/fuel ratio off balance, making it run poorly. It would be advisable to spend a fiver on some fresh fuel hose and some new hose clips before you start into trying to get it running. It'll remove the possibility of a leak onto a hot engine, as detailed above.

Also, be aware that after so long laid up, there are a few parts that can seize up/dry out/perish and may cause a bit of head-scratching to figure out why it won't start or run well. The diaphragm in the fuel pump can perish or the pump itself can seize up. If this is suspected you can bypass the pump altogether and gravity feed some fuel to the carb from above. The float needle valve inside the top of the carb can get stuck in either the open or closed position. If stuck open, it'll flood the engine by pouring the contents of the tank down the carb throat. If stuck closed then the engine won't run after it has drained the float bowl, or not at all if the float bowl was dry before the valve stuck closed. The diaphragm on the accelerator pump on the side of the carb can dry out and perish too, you'll know that's worn out because it'll hemorrhage fuel out the right lower side of the carb.

it'll probably be very low on compression too from being laid up so long, remove the spark plugs, squirt a drop of engine oil down the spark plug holes, refit the plugs but disconnect the short, thick HT lead from the coil to the centre of the distributor cap. Turn the engine over on the key for a few seconds to let the oil get around the rings to help build compression. When you're ready to go, replace that short HT lead.

hopefully it'll splutter to life fairly easily, they're simple old donkeys