OK so a few days ago my cigarette lighter stopped working. First it cooked my cell phone charger and then the fuse in the kick panel blew. If I put in a new one it blows again immediately. I figured no big deal I will fix it when I have time...

The problem now is that there seems to be a draw on my battery even with the ignition off. There has been a slight hesitation when starting the last couple days and today it wouldn't start at all and I had to jump it. I have never had a problem with my yellow top like that before. Since the fuse missing seems to make no difference, I am assuming that the short must be in the wiring somewhere before the drivers kick panel fuse box. Anyone have any insight before I just start ripping my dash apart?

You might have blew the fusible link behind the lighter. Basically a big blob of solder then melts at a certain temp. When it melts, that liquid metal can drip down amd maybe it hit a ground and left a short. Pull the lighter and have a look:
http://toyota.off-road.com/toyota/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=186346

Pulled the lighter itself earlier and it seems to be intact. I was surprised actually. I was hoping that the new lighter assembly was all that I needed. No such luck.

off topic a bit but i knew a girl who had a 92 ford ranger , she had a problem with the battery dying after sitting over night, it happened every night, she replaced the battery, starter and alt and it still happened. she was a neighbor and eventually came over and asked me for a jump, i jumped her and to make a long story short i found a penny in her cig lighter, the way they are on the ranger is with a breaker, i was poking around the fuse panel and found a hot ass metal breaker marked "lighter" i looked in the lighter and saw a penny that had slipped in there , makes you think twice about putting change in the ashtray, at least in that particular truck. soory for the off topic post, just thought somebody might get a kick out of it.

Sounds like more than one short from your description. One one the protected side of the lighter fuse & one that is draining your battery with the key off.

A short wouldn't fry your cell charger, though, have you checked your system voltage?

Dave

i had a smiliar problem. i ended up replacing the cig lighter with one from wally-world. then also there is a wire that goes from the back of your head (motor) to the fire wall. i also replaced that. after that i never had a prob.

Use a multimeter to test the current draw on the battery with the switch off. If there is more than a minimal current draw, start pulling fuses until the ampherage drops. That should tell you what circuit the problem is on. If there is still a draw with all the fuses/breakers pulled, then the problem is before the fusebox. Might try removing the cig lighter completely and seeing if it still blows fuses first.

Oh man, Gremlins suk big time. That was the first issue with my truck. Previous owner stated the battery will drain after a few days and it didn't start till after he got the new stereo installed. Well he didn't know jack about this truck. Read up a lot on battery drain, got out the mulimeter and went to it. Took an hour maybe to test all circuits, found the one it was on (tails, ECU, and CC ECU) turned out to be the CC ECU so I pulled it and tossed it. Be sure that when you take your negative battery cable off to run your Mulimeter between the neg cable and neg post that you run a jumper between the two post before hooking up the MM. There could be enough draw to blow the fuse on the MM. And start out with the 10a setting rather then the 20ma or smaller settings to also prevent a blown fuse.

Take your time and you'll get to know that system too well.