The Odd 72 1/2 Handbrake Problem

This has come up a few times for people with the strange rear brake set-up like mine.
I think it might be a mid-year change since most people in the online VW community comment
that they've never seen anything quite like it. My 1973 was actually built in October, 1972.

The problem is that the hand brake doesn't work because the vertical hand brake actuator arm
(my name for it) hits the center of the hub before it ever gets a chance to move the shoes out to the drum.

Although I'm not really certain why it happens, I think it's because the flat horizontal bar between the
top of the shoes wears away where it goes over the pin on the front shoe (a C-shaped slot) and the pin
(closed round hole) on the rear shoe. I have no idea why the tolerances were designed so close, but
I fixed it in two different ways.