'59 8N - Possible coolant leak

I bought a '59 8N a couple of days before Christmas for mowing and some light plow and blade work around my little 5 acre farm. I'm new to mechanical work but had lots of practice with duct tape and bailing wire as a kid. Trying to do things a little better as an adult...

The tractor has lots of "patina" from being parked outside for most of its life. I'm trying to fix what I had thought were some small issues and touch up paint along the way.

One of the issues was leaking coolant. It was a slow leak and i thought it was coming from the radiator. Today was the first day the radiator shop opened after the holiday, so I dropped it by there for testing.

Meanwhile, I am taking off some of the parts in order to clean away 65 years of accumulated muck so i can paint. Take a look at my attached pictures. These are before and after i removed the water pump. Looking from the front bumper back at the engine, there's a corner where i see coolant continuing to puddle after i've removed the radiator. I mop it up and it forms a puddle again. I got a really good look at this after i pulled off the water pump with the fan blade.

Please let me know what you think the issue is. Could this be a faulty gasket such that i need to tear down the engine or take it to a machine shop for repair?

Thanks in advance,

Dan in Kuna, Idaho

Apologies. This is a 1949 8N tractor. Not sure why i had "'59" on the brain when i posted earlier.

Water pump it self maybe bad or a bad gasket or worse a crack in the block where the pump mounts

There's nothing "wet" in that corner. I'm betting it was the water pump weeping or a crack in the flange for the bottom radiator hose or something. It could seep oil there, but the coolant is coming down from somewhere above.

Go down to the 8N board - lots of help there.

Coolant appears to be running down the face of the block from the water pump area and pooling in the oil pan gasket area.

There CAN'T be a coolant leak down that low because there's no coolant in that lower area of the block TO leak.

What you are calling a "metal gasket" is actually a metal PLATE, and there's supposed to be two gaskets... one on the pump side of the plate, and one on the engine block side of the plate.

Thanks to Bob, Notjustair and Old for your feedback.

The radiator guy let me know that the radiator definitely had leaks in the top and bottom cast iron portions where he said he couldn't reliably fix it. That's probably where the original coolant on that top corner of the oilpan came from.

After i pulled off the radiator, i didn't really get this area cleaned up until i had also pulled off the water pump. That spilled coolant all down the front of the engine.

After i mopped up the coolant, i continued to see coolant pool slowly on that corner of the pan. I think what was happening is there was just enough coolant left in the engine that it was wicking over the edge of the hole where the water pump connects.

Since i opened up the drain cock on the side of the engine so that the coolant level fell to well below that opening on the water pump "port", i've no longer seen coolant pooling on the pan.

I've ordered a new coolant system kit and proceeded to paint my engine. Hopefully everything will continue to hold together so i can put it all back together and get the tractor running again.

Thanks again for your help.

Dan