You may have/likely got grease on the end of the cable and into the collet.  I used some alcohol to clean the end of the cable and the inside of the collet out.  Also noticed some flecks of something or other between the prongs in the collet and picked them out.  You can try changing the trim of the prop to give yourself a bit more cable on the engine side (just to see how if it grips better), with that you can (and possibly should) loosen and adjust the engine mount.
In addition to checking the lines, I was suggesting actually checking the engine seals.  If you have a leak somewhere it may be too lean to start (and there would be no way to adjust at the carb).