If the grease still feels soft and greasy, but nothing happens when you raise the tone arm lever, shoot some spray lube from the top, into the moving pillars of the bar that raises and lowers the tone arm. I used WD-40.

After lubricating, work the mechanism by gently pushing and pulling on the bar that raises and lowers the tone arm, while moving the control lever for the tone arm.

If you are successful you should observe that the tone arm lift bar slowly rises and falls as you raise and lower the lift control.