Give the water pump pulley a wiggle to check for play every now and again. You can normally detect a failing pump before it dies catastrophically.

Switching to an electric fan eliminates any possibility of the fan-through-radiator event, greatly reduces the load on the water pump bearing, and reduces parasitic drag enough that you can feel the difference at anything over about 3500 rpm. If an electric fan ever fails you can still drive at speed, you just can't idle in city traffic, which is a pretty darn good failure mode - you won't be stranded unless you're in the middle of town. Downside, it adds some complexity and reduces originality. Worthy of consideration if you don't mind going non-vintage.