No, thats not normal. It should pull through quite easily from the rear reservoir At the PCV valve. How does it draw the fluid at the front left lower bleed valve ? That is in the same circuit just before the SMC.
When you rebuilt the smc, did you by any chance take out the small plastic cylinder with two gauze filters on it?
One possibility is that it might be in the wrong way round.
View attachment 257967
See the pics and full size version of this diagram in post #1 here:
A faulty SMC, taken apart, sawn lengthways, with labelled photos and a commentary. This SMC had a brand new service kit fitted not long before it failed again. A while ago I posted a query concerning some weird behaviour on a friends braking system. The symptoms were that in spite of getting...
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Another possibilty is that the SMC piston has been inserted incorrectly - so that the primary seal has inverted itself. It has to go in with the flared end first - which takes some gentle manipulation. If you don't get the wide open end of the seal eased into the bore before pushing it in, it will turn inside out - which will block the flow of fluid through the SMC to the PCV valve.
Third possibility. Did you put PTFE tape on the bleed valve threads ? You have to be careful not to cover the hole just after the end of the thread and before the tapered end. That might be blocking suction, and probably better explains why the brake pedal.can push the fluid through.