The radio always worked fine and I know its wired correctly because I installed it myself and I've installed somewhere around 50 head units without any problems. Last night I went to use the cigarette lighter and the was a small pop and spark from the lighter outlet . This is when the radio went out. I checked the fuse and it wasn't blown so I can only assume it overheated a wire and melted the insulation. Any idea what area I should start looking in? From my knowledge the brake light circuit is rather far from the cigarette lighter and the radio wiring. Any help would be appreciated, I just don't feel like pulling the ENTIRE dash to find the problem.

Id check right behind the cig lighter

That was my initial thinking I just don't know how the hell that would cause this problem. At least its an easy job, I'll have to pull the bezels today.

How exactly did you determine that the fuse was still good? Did you use a test light? Or just a visual inspection?

Because the radio and cig lighter run off the same fuse. It would only make sense that that is the problem.

Also check your dome light fuse, radio goes through it as well

I used visual inspection and a test light. I ripped off the bezels, took out the cig lighter and radio and checked all the wiring and everything was good. I checkked the fuse again (visually) and it was good. As I put the fuse back in it popped. Thinking it was due to a short I threw in one of the fuses I had laying around in the jeep ( I think it was a 25 A instead of 15A.) Everything works just dandy now, thanks all for the help.