Water Leak Problem

So I noticed a pretty good amount of antifreez coming from the thermostat housing a few days ago, but I am running a 440 six pack with a rotary A/C compressor, so it is impossible to get to one of the thermostat bolts to tighten it. So, I tightened one as best I could and hoped that would help. It did, for a few days, but then the leak became severely worse. So I decided it was time to go ahead and replace the thermostat gasket and install a new thermostat at the same time.

I replaced the thermostat and istalled a new gasket, but when I filled up the radiator with fresh anitfreeze, I noticed a steady drip dripping off the bottom of the harmonic balancer. It kept dripping steady, and when I started the car up there was at first a squealing noise and then as the car heated up it turned into a grinding/whizzing noise coming from the front of the water pump area...the drip appears that it might be coming from the bottom of the cast iron water pump housing or somewhere above the harmonic balancer.
Is my water pump bad? and if so does anybody know of a good heavy duty water pump to replace it with?
Im running a later model 440 with a cast iron water pump housing that has a drivers side lower outlet. Im also using power steering and A/C and am using an aftermarket aluminum radiator with stock shroud, and a factory 5 blade fan with clutch. This is my second tech question on moparts and I was very impressed with the speedy quality responses last time! Im sure somebody here has had this problem before....

Time for a new water pump. The bearings and seals are shot. The pump is dribbling out the weep hole in the bottom of the bearing housing.

A typical parts store pump should be fine. There's no need for a mega dollar pump unless you're looking for something pretty.

Ok cool. I get very nervous anytime I hear funny noises coming from the engine. Thanks for the quick response! Is the typical parts store pump going to be any better than just a stock pump? I am trying to find the best possible pump that I can get within reason. Maybe the parts store has a high volume stock water pump?

The parts store pump is a oem replacement pump. Make sure you ask for a new water pump and not a rebuilt water pump.

Hit this link and scroll about half way down the page. You'll see an instrumented comparison of a variety of water pumps. It's not a white laboratory coat kind of test but it's got good info.

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,60599.175.html

You will see there is not much difference between stock and "high performance" pumps.